WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 30: 030
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The next morning.
I helped my sister sort through the loot.
It was a simple job.
“Jiho! Move these too.”
“Yeah.”
We carried the loot piled in ramen boxes outside the villa, then called the buyer. Less than ten minutes later.
-Vroooom.
A familiar one-ton truck approached.
It was an old, shabby truck with the words, “Top Prices for Tower Loot! Fast Purchase! Same-Day Payment Guaranteed!” written on its side.
It belonged to the loot buyer we dealt with.
Screech.
The truck stopped, and a middle-aged man with a warm face climbed out.
“Haha. Thank you as always. Goodness! You’ve got quite a lot today too.”
“No need to thank us. Should we help you load it?”
“No! You’re VIP customers, so I should carry it myself.”
My sister and the man chatted normally.
But both my sister and I knew.
That man was a National Intelligence Service agent.
‘An identity no one could have imagined!’
For some reason, I felt like I ought to do an exaggerated spit take.
And he wasn’t the only one.
I turned my gaze and looked around.
Only then did I realize there were quite a few people scattered through this small villa neighborhood.
The person smoking beside a car parked by the road while staring at their phone.
National Intelligence Service.
The bespectacled woman reading a book through the window of the building across the street.
National Intelligence Service.
The unemployed-looking man shuffling along in slippers, swinging a convenience store bag.
National Intelligence Service.
‘The whole world is National Intelligence Service agents!’
I hadn’t known until a few days ago.
In truth, I had been living under the thorough protection and surveillance of several National Intelligence Service agents!
It was something Han Seonga had told me recently.
I muttered to myself.
‘I think I understand how the protagonist of The Truman Show felt.’
I thought I’d simply been on edge and overly sensitive to other people watching me.
But I was actually being watched twenty-four hours a day.
Because I possessed such outstanding abilities, this body of mine was suffering under the nation’s obsessive, exhausting stalking.
‘Hoo... The life of an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter is this difficult. A life without privacy.’
Still, it couldn’t be helped.
It was only natural for capable people to draw attention from others.
I had no choice but to endure it.
“We’re done with the loot. Let’s head inside.”
“Sis. Having ability seems good, but it also seems tiring. You don’t have any privacy.”
“Because of the guards? But you lock yourself in your room and barely go outside anyway. What privacy could possibly be invaded? It’s good that the country keeps you safe.”
“That’s true.”
If I were an active, outgoing socialite, I might have been horrified by this situation.
It would’ve been suffocating to have eyes following me everywhere.
But I was a proud shut-in!
I never went outside!
So surveillance and protection from the National Intelligence Service didn’t bother me in the slightest!
Thank goodness I was a shut-in.
“...Sigh. You should go outside too. Meet women and date someone. Why do you stay cooped up at home every day?”
“You don’t have a man either, sis. Hurry up and find me a brother-in-law to introduce. You’re already twenty-nine. Keep taking it easy like this, and you’ll grow old single for life.”
“...”
Twenty-nine.
The age when women were especially sensitive about their age.
I must’ve hit a nerve.
Smack!
My sister put all her strength into slapping my back.
But it didn’t hurt at all.
This body belonged to an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.
Violence from an ordinary person didn’t even tickle me.
I snickered.
“All you’ll do is hurt your hand.”
“You little...!”
“It’s okay, sis. You’ll be in your twenties forever from now on.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
My sister grumbled as she rubbed her hand.
But I meant it.
There were many artifacts inside the Tower.
Not just weapons and equipment used by Hunters.
There were also plenty of artifacts attractive enough for ordinary people.
A Full Recovery Potion that instantly restored all wounds and physical damage as long as the user was still alive.
A Disease-Curing Potion that healed every illness besides injuries, even genetic diseases, including baldness.
A Weather Controller that could freely control weather phenomena in a certain region if enough Points were invested.
A coordinate-input one-way portal that could take you directly anywhere as long as you paid the right amount of Points.
The Tower produced all kinds of objects that modern science could never create.
And among them...
There was something called a Reverse-Aging Potion.
Its effect was to immediately turn the drinker’s physical age back by one year.
Put simply, it made you younger.
If Qin Shi Huang found out about it, he’d jump straight out of his grave.
Thanks to that, the world’s richest people supposedly stocked up on dozens of Reverse-Aging Potions and continued living with the appearances they had in their twenties and thirties.
One day, I planned to get some Reverse-Aging Potions for my sister.
‘Once I get past Floor 31, I’ll be able to obtain Reverse-Aging Potions, which are Grade 2 artifacts. When I find one, I’ll give it to my sister.’
My sister had sacrificed her entire precious youth in her twenties for the family.
I might not be able to give her lost youth back.
But it seemed entirely possible to stop her from aging any further.
I called it the Eternal Young Twenty Plan.
A wicked and terrible plan that would let my sister keep living in the body of someone in their twenties without ever aging again.
‘Of course, that’s after reaching Floor 31.’
I was still just a weakling at the entrance to the Middle Floors.
I couldn’t obtain an artifact that only appeared on Floor 31 yet.
Still, wouldn’t I get to Floor 31 soon enough?
At my current climbing pace, I felt like I could reach the Upper Floors within a month.
Anyway...
“Hurry up and make doenjang soup, sis. I’m hungry.”
“Sigh... Fine. Let me finish this paperwork first. But can’t you stop eating doenjang soup so much? I’m sick of making it.”
“Breakfast should be a hot, hearty bowl of doenjang soup.”
“What are you even talking about?”
It was an ordinary morning, just like always.
* * *
I prepared to clear Floor 12.
In other words, I browsed HunterNet for a while.
[(Info) How to Clear Tower Floor 12]
[(Info) Latest Floor 12 Map v11.3]
[(Info) List of Obtainable Loot on Floor 12]
Those were the strategy posts that appeared as I browsed HunterNet’s information board.
I read them slowly.
[Post Title: (Info) How to Clear Tower Floor 12]
Floor 12 is a floor where you must subdue the Orc Fortress.
Please refer to this post together with the map below.
(Map link)
The most stable strategy known so far is repeated luring and elimination.
1. First, set up camp in Area E, the starting point.
2. Have four people lie in wait at Point D on the map.
3. One team member with high mobility travels back and forth along Route A-C, luring Orcs out of the fortress.
4. Eliminate them at Point D.
One point to note is the terrain at Point B...
...
‘This is boring as hell.’
The words slipped from my mouth as I read.
It felt boring.
The strategy post was too polite and detailed.
Instead of feeling like I was reading an internet post, it felt like I had opened a reference book to memorize it.
I just couldn’t focus.
‘Though this really is studying, isn’t it?’
As a Hunter, I was learning the strategy information for the floor I was about to climb.
It was obviously studying.
But perhaps I had grown too accustomed to the casual posts on Hunter Gallery.
Whenever I saw stiff writing like that...
It just didn’t register.
“Damn it. I’ll just read Hunter Gallery’s guide. HunterNet’s information is detailed, but it’s too boring.”
In the end, I closed HunterNet and opened Hunter Gallery.
Then I searched for a Floor 12 strategy guide.
[(Notice) Floor 12 Strategy Guide]
Fortunately, Hunter Gallery also had a guide for Floor 12.
Well, HunterNet had only appeared after the middle of the Middle Floors, after there were too many people trying to make a living off Tower loot.
There would probably still be strategy posts up through the early and middle parts of the Middle Floors.
Anyway, I read the post.
[Post Title: (Notice) Floor 12 Strategy Guide]
Welcome to Floor 12, Hunter bros.
Here’s the Floor 12 guide.
Floor 12 is where you kill every Orc in the Orc Fortress on the hill at the center of the map, then take the Escape Portal inside.
For reference, there are over 250 Orcs in the fortress.
Trying to rush in with only five people and kill them all is suicide, so the standard method is to lure them out and kill them bit by bit.
But if you take the Return Portal back to reality, all the monsters you killed reset.
That means you’re forced to camp inside the Tower and clear it over several days.
Let’s start.
As soon as you begin, set up camp near the Return Portal.
For food, kill Orcs later and loot their packs. You’ll find things like jerky and cheese, so live off that.
For water, push through the brush behind the Return Portal. There’s a small stream there.
Just scoop from it and drink.
After setting up camp, walk north for about twenty minutes and cross one ridge.
You’ll see what looks like a small stone wall built on a hill.
That’s the Orc Fortress.
The Escape Portal is inside the fortress, and entering it clears Floor 12.
But there are a whopping 250 Orcs in there, so if you charge in right away, you’ll get crushed.
That’s why you repeatedly lure them out and slaughter them.
Send one Hunter near the fortress to hang around, and around ten Orcs will chase after them.
Lead those guys somewhere far away where your allies are waiting in ambush.
Then beat them to death with the other four.
You have to do this around twenty times lol.
Keep repeating that lure-and-kill grind to steadily reduce the number of Orcs inside the fortress.
Once there are about fifty left, they stop sending pursuit groups.
Then sneak in at night and fight them.
The Orcs have poor night vision, so they’re fairly manageable if you ambush them at night lol.
Kill every Orc in the fortress and take the Escape Portal to clear Floor 12.
As for loot, there’s some leather and a few ingots inside.
If you’re incredibly lucky, you might find one Grade 4 artifact.
It’ll probably only be a dagger with something like Sharpness Retention or Reinforced Durability...
But even that sells for hundreds of millions for free, so it’s a huge win.
If you see anything that looks unusual, pick it up lololol.
That’s it. Floor 12 isn’t that hard as long as you lure them properly.
Keep climbing, everyone!
└How many days does Floor 12 take to clear?
└└Three to four days if you take it easy. Around two days if you push hard?
└└So you have to survive the whole time eating nothing but Orc jerky and cheese? Damn, that sounds disgusting... That stuff tastes awful.
└└Tsk tsk. To disrespect the Orc chef’s jerky and cheese, with their wonderfully savory stink. You clearly know nothing about fine food.
└└If you like that stink so much, go smell your own feet.
└Why does a Grade 4 artifact dagger sell for so much? It’s just a dagger, so it shouldn’t be useful in the Tower.
└└Famous chefs in the restaurant industry buy them. I saw a Mutube video where some omakase chef was grinning because it stayed sharp without ever being sharpened.
└└That’s ridiculous.
└Aren’t Orcs total idiots? You lure out ten at a time and kill them over and over, and they keep falling for it? Wouldn’t they realize it’s a trap and stop chasing eventually...?
└└They really are total idiots lol. Just think of them as muscular beasts with animal-level intelligence.
└└Only when there are around fifty left do they realize something’s wrong and camp inside the fortress. It’s seriously hilarious lol.
└└Goblins can be cunning sometimes, but Orcs just seem to trust their physiques and charge straight in... Sometimes regular Orcs are easier to deal with than Goblin Warriors.
└What happens if you send more than one person to lure the Orcs?
└└You’re screwed. If one person goes, only around ten Orcs chase them, but if two or three go, dozens come running lol.
└└So you absolutely have to send only one person as bait.
...
I smiled faintly as I read the strategy post.
“See? Hunter Gallery’s strategy posts are much easier to read.”
HunterNet’s strategy post.
It was a good post.
The details were thorough, and it had a precise map.
It compiled knowledge and information accumulated over a long time to create the safest, most efficient clearing strategy.
It felt like a proven, excellent textbook.
But it was boring.
Hunter Gallery’s strategy post, on the other hand.
Its contents were relatively sloppy compared to HunterNet’s guide.
It had no detailed map.
There were several inefficient parts too, but...
‘It felt real.’
This strategy post had been written in the Tower’s early days.
Back when almost every Hunter was climbing the Tower, uncovering the unknown piece by piece.
The pioneering spirit of that time was still alive in the post and its comments.
That was why I preferred Hunter Gallery’s sloppy strategy posts to HunterNet’s proven and detailed ones.
How should I put it?
It felt less like reading a strategy post and more like looking through history.
Anyway.
I had gathered enough information about Floor 12.
‘Floor 12 is about conquering the Orc Fortress.’
I had to lure out the Orcs holed up in the fortress little by little and steadily reduce their numbers.
The clear time was about three days.
Since it was impossible to fight 250 Orcs all at once, Hunters had to repeat luring and slaughtering them for a long time.
But...
“Ordinary people sure climb the Tower the hard way. Spending three whole days just to kill 250 Orcs.”
I had no intention of following an ordinary person’s strategy.
Who was I?
The noble and great Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.
A mere 250 Orcs?
I could wipe them out along with the whole fortress in an instant.
“Rip and smash!”
My task was extremely simple.
Kill every Orc and sweep up every last bit of loot!
With that, I waited for my EX-grade porter.
Entering Tower Floor 12.
The Floor 12 clear had begun.
* * *
Flash!
The bright light faded.
I slowly looked around.
As expected, it was grassland.
A vast green field, scattered hills, a clear sky, brilliant sunlight, and crisp air.
It was scenery that felt good for my mental health.
After looking around for a moment.
“Alright, Hyeji. Let’s get going.”
“Yes.”
I headed north with my EX-grade porter.
Step, step. Tap, tap.
I led the way, and Hyeji followed behind.
After walking for around twenty minutes.
“There’s the Orc Fortress.”
We finally reached a place where we could see the Orc Fortress.
A single structure stood atop a hill.
It was quite old and worn down, with parts of it collapsed badly enough that the inside was visible.
Still, it had a certain antique charm.
A two-story stone wall.
Windows scattered throughout.
Tall spires visible behind them.
It looked like a small medieval European fortress from before the invention of cannons.
There was no way creatures like Orcs had built such a convincing structure.
It was probably a setting where Orcs had occupied an abandoned fortress.
I studied the fortress for a moment.
Then I spoke to Hyeji.
“Hyeji. Today, I’m a building demolition contractor.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Safety first! Good! Good! Good!”
“...”
“Safe construction! Good! Good! Good!”
Hyeji let out a deep sigh.
Hyeji apparently didn’t know how to react to my nonsense.
I raised my staff.
‘The number of Fireballs I can use now is around 250.’
Now that I had reached Floor 12.
My mana pool had become enormous.
At first, it had only increased by around five to ten Fireballs every time I climbed a floor.
Then, at some point, it started increasing by enough mana for twenty to thirty Fireballs per floor.
My mana pool was growing exponentially.
That brought the number of Fireballs I could use to a staggering 250.
Thanks to that, I was confident I could wipe out a shabby fortress like that in an instant.
Hummmmmm...!
I drew up a huge amount of the Blue Motes inside me.
Then I began creating a massive number of Fireballs.
Footnotes:
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