WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 24: 024
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Flash!
The light faded.
I slowly opened my eyes.
I looked around.
I was standing atop a towering, jagged rocky mountain. Looking down, I saw an enormous green tide below.
Goblins.
-Kerreuk! Keruk!
-Keeeeeek!
-Kieeeeeek!
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Goblins, were climbing the mountain.
They swarmed everywhere.
Like an army of ants pouring in.
Watching them, I muttered under my breath.
"Crazy... There are way too many."
Ten thousand.
It was hard to grasp that number just by hearing it. But seeing it in person made my breath catch from the sheer pressure.
It was literally a green wave.
A massive Goblin horde had become a tide of green, slowly swallowing the rocky mountain from below.
There was a reason so many Easy-rank Hunters gave up climbing on Floor 9.
Anyone who saw this would think there was no way through and immediately take the Return Portal.
I glanced beyond the Goblin horde.
Far past them was a mass of bright light scattering its radiance.
The Escape Portal.
The goal of Floor 9 was to break through the Goblins' encirclement and reach it.
As I checked the terrain around us...
"Eeeek!"
Na Hyeji screamed as she trembled.
The scale of the incoming Goblin horde had clearly terrified her. She grabbed my collar and pleaded.
"Q-Quick, let's go! They're coming this way! We have to run before we're completely surrounded!"
That was the standard strategy for clearing Floor 9.
Right after entering.
Before the Goblins completely climbed the mountain.
You used the terrain and your mobility to break through an area where they were still relatively sparse.
It would be quite difficult for ordinary people.
You had to force your way through the barrage of arrows, leap between rocks, quickly kill the Goblins blocking your path, and run for your life until you broke through the horde and reached the Escape Portal.
It could only be difficult and dangerous.
But I didn't need to do that.
"Hyeji. Remember this."
"...Yes?"
"A wizard doesn't do something as undignified as running."
Na Hyeji stared blankly at me for a moment.
Then she shrieked.
"W-What are you talking about?! We need to go now! They keep coming!"
"Let them come. Fireball's hungry."
"No, seriously!"
Na Hyeji began to whine.
The Goblin horde was closing in by the second, so she was probably frustrated that I was just standing there.
Still, I had my reasons.
'They need to gather together if I want to kill lots of them in one shot.'
The Goblin horde was still spread out at the foot of the gently sloping rocky mountain.
The higher they climbed, though, the rough terrain would slow them down.
Before long, they'd be packed together like commuters crammed into a rush-hour subway car.
If I dropped Fireballs on them then, I could get the best possible efficiency.
Fireballs against a tightly packed Goblin horde...
Just thinking about it made my mouth water.
-Kerreureuk!
-Keruk! Keruk!
-Kiaaaaaah!
The Goblins kept pouring in.
At first, they were at the base of the mountain. Once they passed the middle and gathered into a dense mass, I finally raised my staff.
'Time to begin.'
I drew up the Blue Motes from within my heart.
-Wooooooong!
A huge number of Blue Motes flowed out and rapidly formed arrays at my will.
Naturally, they were arrays for Fireball.
I created countless of them.
-Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...
Fireballs rose one after another.
One at first.
Then ten.
Past fifty, then a hundred...
'One hundred and fifty large Fireballs.'
Fwoooooosh!
A full one hundred and fifty Fireballs rose into the air and began orbiting around me.
The roaring flames heated the air.
The bright firelight radiated an intense presence.
Then...
-...Keruk?!
The Goblins climbing the rocky mountain while drooling suddenly stopped.
As if time itself had frozen.
A hundred and fifty Fireballs had appeared out of nowhere, and it seemed their thoughts had stopped working.
I aimed my staff at them.
"Die."
People often said artillery was the god of war.
Then what did a wizard feel like in the Tower?
The answer was right before my eyes.
-Screeeeeech!
A hundred red trails tore through the air.
I unleashed one hundred of the one hundred and fifty Fireballs at once.
Countless red trails scattered ahead and struck the Goblin horde.
Then...
Flash.
A brilliant light flared, and countless explosions erupted at once.
-Kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwaang!
A thunderous roar and violent tremors shook heaven and earth.
Explosions and dust burst upward from every direction.
Shattered green limbs and chunks of flesh flew everywhere.
The Goblin horde that had filled the mountainside was ripped apart and scattered in all directions.
It felt as though the entire rocky mountain was roaring.
-Keeeeek!
-Kyaaaaaak!
-Kiek! Kiek!
The Goblins screamed as they rolled across the ground.
Panicking, they scattered in every direction.
The green wave that had filled my view.
Roughly half of it had been blown to pieces and vanished in an instant.
Whoooosh.
A thick cloud of dust swept in on the shockwave and obscured my vision.
"Wow...!"
An exclamation escaped me.
I was too excited to hold it in.
"Fuck! This is magic!"
I'd fired a hundred Fireballs and wiped out thousands of Goblins in one shot!
Ministry of Artillery Defense! You were right!
Firepower! More firepower!
Only greater firepower can rip apart, crush, and kill more enemies!
A sense of omnipotence surged up from deep inside me.
'Is this what they call a firepower high?!'
Wiping out thousands of Goblins at once gave me an intense sense of satisfaction.
The feeling of sweeping away thousands of enemies with a single gesture.
It was incredibly addictive.
"M-My god...!"
Na Hyeji stared down at the Goblin horde with stunned eyes.
Thousands of Goblins had been ripped apart in a single attack.
Of course she was shocked.
I grinned.
"Let's head down now."
I'd done enough to crush their morale.
Now it was time to head for the Escape Portal.
I slowly started walking down the mountain.
Along the way, we encountered scattered Goblins.
-Kieeeek!
-Kyaaaaaah!
The Goblins had been wandering around in panic, and they kept popping up in our path.
Dealing with them was simple.
-Kwaaaang!
Whenever enough of them gathered together, I blasted them apart with Fireball.
-Slice!
Whenever they clustered in a narrow path, I sent out Wind Cutter and cut them in half.
-Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
For the Goblins scattered around on their own, I gifted them Air Bullets and opened ventilation holes in their foreheads.
That was how I casually walked down the mountain.
Na Hyeji followed behind me, looking completely dumbfounded as she muttered.
"My god... I knew Jiho was strong, but this is..."
"What do you think? Have you finally come to understand the beauty of Fireball, Hyeji?"
"I don't like it because of all the corpses... but seeing this, I think I understand why Jiho likes Fireball. My god. How did you kill that many Goblins at once...?"
Na Hyeji looked around as she spoke.
We were currently passing through the middle of the rocky mountain.
This was where my firepower had been concentrated.
The whole area had been utterly destroyed.
Goblin remains littered the ground.
Corpses and chunks of flesh were scattered all over the rocky mountain, while the rocks and stones on the ground had been shattered by the blasts.
It was complete devastation.
I'd ground up thousands of Goblins along with the terrain.
I felt proud all over again.
'Yeah. This is what it means to be an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.'
How could someone as great as me hop around like those ordinary Easy-rank, Normal-rank, and Hard-rank Hunters?
I had to pulverize at least a few thousand Goblins from where I stood to match the dignity of an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard.
We kept going, killing the Goblin groups we encountered along the way.
Before long, we reached the Escape Portal.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 9)]
[You have completed Tower Floor 9.]
[You have defeated 2,842 Goblins (1).]
[You have defeated 1,123 Goblin Archers (2).]
[You have defeated 423 Goblin Warriors (10).]
[Points are being calculated.]
[Tower Floor 10 has been unlocked.]
[Returning.]
I'd killed 4,388 of them.
Easy.
* * *
Right after returning, I immediately opened my status window.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 10)]
[9,318 Points]
The massive number, 9,318, appeared before me.
Na Hyeji, who had been watching, cried out in shock.
"Nine thousand three hundred shib-pal?!"
"Watch your pronunciation. It sounds like a curse."
"No... My god... Is this even possible?"
Hyeji stood there with her mouth open, as if she'd lost the ability to speak.
Na Hyeji had just witnessed my overwhelming power.
Still, seeing it in Points seemed to make my greatness hit her all over again.
Adults liked numbers, after all.
I puffed out my chest and boasted.
"Can you feel it? My greatness?"
"It is impressive... How did you earn over nine thousand Points on the Lower Floors...?"
"It's me."
Someone as noble and great as an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter should be bringing in thousands of Points even on the Lower Floors.
Anyway.
That finished today's climb.
It was time to keep up my daily routine.
I logged into Hunter Gallery and quickly wrote a post.
[Post Title: Newbie Hunter... Just Cleared Floor 9.]
[Author: Blue Dot]
Newbie Hunter... Went to Floor 9 today.
Just like I'd heard, there were tons of Goblins swarming in.
They were climbing the mountain like they were covering the whole thing...
It was so gross.
So I killed them all T_T
I killed a little over 4,000 and earned 9,318 Points.
Phew... Today, I saved 9,318 citizens of the Republic of Korea.
I feel good. I'm proud.
I'll go to Floor 10 tomorrow.
I hope I clear Floor 10 quickly and reach the Middle Floors.
└How do you kill 4,000 Goblins
└Dude, your roleplay power creep is insane lol. A few days ago you were lying about killing hundreds of Goblins, and now your roleplay is that you killed thousands?
└Even a High Floor Hunter couldn't kill 4,000 Goblins. They'd run out of stamina before that.
└Did you set off a bomb or something? How do you kill 4,000?
└└Blue Dot: Not a bomb, but it's similar.
└└?
The comments came pouring in.
Maybe the number sounded too absurd.
Nobody believed me.
Back then, there had at least been a few people who thought I was a High Floor Hunter pretending to play around on the Lower Floors.
Now, even those people were nowhere to be seen.
'Phew. As expected of people who keep their eyes closed, none of them can see through the truth. But that's fine. I'll still save you all myself.'
The Hunter Gallery users were mostly ordinary people or weak Easy-rank Hunters who knew nothing of the world beyond that.
Still.
"Once I clear Floor 10, I'll be a Middle Floor Hunter too..."
Middle Floor Hunters.
They could be called the nobility of the Hunter world.
'Middle Floors' sounded somewhat ordinary.
In reality, though, Middle Floor Hunters were highly skilled personnel, with only around 2,000 in the country.
Originally, there had been around 2,600, but that number had fallen to 2,000.
Quite a few had either emigrated or died.
Most came from the ranks of ordinary Normal-rank Hunters.
Their average monthly Point income was around 10,000 Points.
Considering Lower Floor Hunters barely scraped together a few hundred Points per month, that was a fairly high income.
One Middle Floor Hunter did the work of dozens of Lower Floor Hunters alone.
That was why reaching the Middle Floors came with all kinds of benefits.
First, a government official was assigned to them, providing various conveniences and administrative assistance.
They received treatment comparable to a third-grade civil servant, roughly the rank of a colonel in the military, and could even receive a little formal protocol.
On top of that, they received a pension.
Of course, considering a Hunter's income, it was a pension they could take or leave.
Still, it meant the country looked after them.
They were also buried in the National Cemetery after death, among other forms of respect.
And most importantly...
'Full tax exemption!'
The fifty percent tax that was normally taken from loot sales.
They wouldn't collect a single cent.
That was how differently the Lower Floors and Middle Floors were treated.
Hunters rolling around on the Lower Floors were everywhere.
Those who reached the Middle Floors, though, were truly few in number.
They received special treatment wherever they went.
There was a reason Japan accepted immigrants starting from Floor 11.
Once I cleared Floor 10 tomorrow, I'd register as a Middle Floor Hunter and enjoy all sorts of benefits and treatment.
Of course, I wouldn't be the only one receiving those benefits.
I glanced at Hyeji beside me.
"Hyeji. Thanks to me, you'll become a Middle Floor Hunter tomorrow. Don't you have something to say?"
"Thank you so much...!"
"Always be grateful, human."
Hyeji should honestly be grateful to me for the rest of her life.
I wished she'd break her whining habit, though.
I needed to get a Spatial Bag soon and work her hard...
Anyway.
Tomorrow, we'd climb Floor 10.
It was the final floor of the Lower Floors.
The gateway to the Middle Floors.
And the only floor in the Tower where Goblin Shamans appeared.
'Goblin Shamans. It'll be nice to see them again.'
This would be the first time I'd seen them since the Tutorial.
For some reason, I thought I'd be happy to see them again.
My first impression of them had been terrible...
Still, weren't they the admirable guys who taught me how to use magic?
They were a kind of teacher to me!
To show proper respect for my teachers, I should kill them as spectacularly as possible.
"Teachers! Watch me! Watch the growth of your Extreme Lunatic Hell disciple!"
Of course, my real teacher had gotten their head blown apart by a Fireball in the Tutorial.
But Goblin Shamans were fellow disciples of my teacher and senior to me.
In martial arts terms, they were my martial uncles.
So I intended to show them the utmost respect as well.
If I unleashed every spell I knew on them, the Goblin Shamans would surely marvel at their junior's growth and give me a standing ovation.
"First, I'll bind them with Earth Manipulation Magic, pierce their limbs with Air Bullets, cut them in half with Wind Cutter, then blow them to pieces with Fireball..."
"J-Jiho? What gruesome thoughts are you having?"
"I'm planning to show my seniors how much their junior has grown."
"...?"
Tomorrow, I would clear Floor 10.
Becoming a Middle Floor Hunter was right around the corner.
Footnotes:
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