WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 38: Serotonin
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After parting ways with Kim Jina's party, I visited a food stall selling Gukbap, supposedly a specialty of Server 1450.
Even though some time had passed, the stall was still packed. I paid a Festival Coin and found a seat.
There was only one item on the menu anyway, so a steaming bowl of Gukbap was soon set in front of me.
“Your Gukbap is ready. Be careful, the bowl is hot! It's a Ttukbaegi!”
The Gukbap came in a white bowl with an unfamiliar design. It looked different, but apparently it was roughly similar to a Ttukbaegi.
The Gukbap inside was actually boiling, and when I touched the bowl, it was warm all over.
The person who brought it over had handled it with bare hands, so they probably had the Fire Resistance skill.
I scooped up a little of the hot broth and tasted it. It was only lightly seasoned with salt.
I'd eaten nothing but White Rolls for so long that even a little salt made my tongue react sharply.
There was salt and pepper on every table, but I didn't need to add any more.
After tasting the plain broth a few times, I added the extra ingredients one at a time.
A spoonful of chopped greens that looked like green onions.
A little pepper.
A bit more seasoning paste.
And finally, a poison arrow.
[Poison-Coated Steel Arrow (Poisoning: Strong)]
This was a powerful poison arrow obtainable on Floor 6. The poison coating it was unusual in that it was colorless and odorless.
That meant I could dissolve it into food and eat it without affecting the taste at all.
My Poison Resistance was already too high to increase any further from consumables like this, but you never knew.
After generously mixing poison into the Gukbap, I stirred in the rice and leisurely began eating.
As I savored the Gukbap, I opened the system interface and brought up an unfamiliar window.
[Friends List]
A list I'd never had any reason to check in Tower 2661, where I was all alone.
It listed the names of the party members I'd just parted with, including Kim Jina.
* * *
Kim Jina's proposal was more practical than I'd expected.
“Jinhyeok, which do you need more, Festival Coins or Meteorstones?”
When Kim Jina suddenly asked me that, I answered that I needed coins more.
Meteorstones were material items used to make event-exclusive equipment, but I wasn't that interested in equipment.
It would be far more useful to use Festival Coins to import consumables unavailable on the lower floors.
Kim Jina clapped as if she'd expected that answer.
“Then that's perfect. We need Meteorstones more. So, how about this?”
Kim Jina suggested that instead of splitting the dungeon-clear rewards evenly, we give all the coins to one side and all the Meteorstones to the other.
“And we form a fixed party, deliberately trigger traps like before, then quickly farm the rewards.”
On top of that, Kim Jina suggested we form a proper party and do a kind of fast coin farm.
Our party's clear time, after getting caught in the trap and quickly encountering the boss, had been less than half the existing records.
Even so, we'd received more rewards than usual. She said it would be more profitable to keep running this dungeon than to tackle some mediocre higher-level dungeon.
The currency gained from a single clear was lower than in other dungeons, but that wasn't true when you considered the time it took.
Kim Jina was also confident she could trigger that trap again.
“But why should I?”
Naturally, I refused her proposal. Why the hell did I have any reason to form a party with them?
Kim Jina wasn't an idiot, so she obviously knew that too.
“Come on, I told you. We'll give you all the coins.”
It turned out Kim Jina's idea of giving me everything covered more than I'd thought.
In exchange for taking the Meteorstones, she planned to hand over not only the individual rewards, but even all the coins they earned through their event quests.
Kim Jina's party would safely collect Meteorstones under my protection.
I'd collect a large amount of coins faster than I could by running higher-level dungeons alone.
A trade only possible because we wanted different currencies. But it required one assumption.
That I had no use for Meteorstones at all.
I'd only said I preferred Festival Coins to Meteorstones. I never said I didn't need the latter.
Yet Kim Jina somehow nailed the fact that I had absolutely no need for Meteorstones, as though she could read minds.
When I asked what made her think that, Kim Jina spoke like a detective revealing the truth behind a case.
“When you sent Minhyeong flying, I secretly searched for your name in the community. You seemed like you might be famous.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You fought exactly like a Ranker earlier. I figured you had to be making a name for yourself on another server.”
That was how Kim Jina saw the countless flex posts I'd uploaded to the community in the past and figured out my resource situation.
She realized I could enhance equipment however I wanted with all the materials I had.
From that, she figured the equipment I was wearing only looked ordinary and was actually all heavily enhanced.
Compared to my current equipment, which she assumed was enhanced to near the highest level, she guessed Meteorstone Equipment wouldn't be much help.
There were some parts she got wrong, but she was mostly right.
The items I was wearing really were heavily enhanced. I'd just put [Durability] on every single enhancement.
The reason I didn't want Meteorstone Equipment wasn't because of my stats. I just wasn't very interested in equipment.
Either way, there was no downside to accepting the offer.
“Sure, why not.”
That was how I used the friend request and trade functions for the first time.
* * *
-Tap.
After setting down the completely empty Gukbap bowl, I poured a detox potion into it and gave it a quick rinse.
Otherwise, another Challenger could get poisoned by the poison left in the bowl.
“I don't want to end up remembered as a food stall terrorist.”
I left the bowl behind, stood up, and paid Festival Coins to order several more bowls of Gukbap to go.
I planned to try food from other stalls too, but I didn't think anything would be as good as the Gukbap here.
I still had plenty of Festival Coins anyway.
After that, I ran dungeons with Kim Jina's party several more times.
Just as she'd confidently claimed, Kim Jina remembered the trap that summoned the boss and was able to trigger it again.
Having found the shortcut, our clear time kept getting faster until we could clear the dungeon four times in the time it took others to do it once.
Kim Jina and the other two collected huge amounts of Meteorstone Fragments, while I earned dozens of Festival Coins.
“Here are your takeout orders. If you're not eating them right away, would you like me to put in a few Heating Stones?”
“That's fine.”
“Okay, then please come again! We'll be open every day until the last day of the Festival!”
-Ding.
As I picked up the takeout Gukbap, an alert went off in the friends chat room as though it had been timed perfectly.
[Kim Jina: Jinhyeok-gay, thanks to you today was fun, bro.]
What the fuck was this? Had they mixed hallucinogens into the Gukbap I ate earlier? Mental contamination?
[Seo Jinhyeok: ???]
I hurriedly pulled out a detox potion from my inventory and asked through chat why she was talking like that.
[Kim Jina: Everyone in the community talks like this.]
[Kim Jina: Isn't this right?]
[Seo Jinhyeok: No, that's not it.]
It seemed she'd picked up some weird habits after seeing me talk to the community ghosts.
Relieved that nothing had gone wrong, I put the detox potion back.
-Ding, ding.
After Kim Jina's bizarre greeting, Kim Minhyeong and Kim Jinseok each sent a message too.
[Kim Jinseok: Jinhyeok, you worked hard today.]
[Kim Minhyeong: Please take care of us tomorrow too, hyung.]
Ever since I punched his shield, Kim Minhyeong had diligently called me hyung.
At first, I thought he was a rude bastard, but after the hierarchy got sorted out, he became incredibly polite.
There was a trade involving coins, but I was practically carrying them through the dungeon, so maybe it was only natural.
I sent brief replies to the two of them, then walked toward the inn carrying my takeout Gukbap.
It felt like I'd had a fun day for the first time in a long while.
It hadn't been a particularly eventful day, but I'd experienced party play for the first time in my life and gotten to eat something delicious for once.
Kim Jina and the other party members kept talking to me despite my wrecked communication skills.
Even setting aside all the coins I could earn, I thought it had been a good idea to form a fixed party.
Honestly, if all I wanted was a lot of coins, I didn't need to accept Kim Jina's proposal.
Instead of stubbornly soloing, I could've simply joined a party of high-level Challengers tackling the highest-level dungeons.
I might've earned a lot of coins that way, but I wouldn't have had this much fun.
Forget fun, my communication problems might've caused conflicts.
Not the intense flood of dopamine that came with feeling my growth, but a gentle wave of serotonin.
Sometimes, this was nice too.
* * *
The next day, planning to continue farming coins, I headed to the mini dungeon's entrance map.
“Jinhyeok, over here!”
Kim Jina and the party members had arrived first and were waiting in front of the portal, so I immediately joined them.
We didn't need to ask if everyone was ready anymore. I immediately placed my hand on the portal to enter.
“Hey, move.”
At that moment, some guy standing beside the portal slapped my hand away. What was this asshole's problem?
“This spot belongs to our party.”
His tone was rude as hell too. But did he just say it was their spot?
I thought maybe his party had been preparing to enter before ours gathered, but that clearly wasn't it.
There was no one around him who looked like a party member. He was alone.
I'd understand if he were a solo player like me, but hadn't he just said it was for his party?
“What are you staring at? Get lost.”
What the hell was this guy's deal?
Footnotes:
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