WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 57: 057
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The Republic of Korea's second Hard-rank Hunter.
Choi Yejin.
She turned off HunterNet and muttered.
"Baek Jiho... Was he Blue Dot on Hunter Gallery?"
Trickle.
She picked up a bottle of whiskey and poured it into a rocks glass.
Amber liquid flowed over the clear ice.
Tilting the glass, she murmured under her breath.
"To think that attention-seeking bastard really slaughtered those Chinese bastards."
She opened another site on her smartphone.
It was none other than Hunter Gallery.
An internet trash heap where nobody climbed the Tower seriously, full of attention seekers and gold-farming parasites.
She searched for "Blue Dot."
One post appeared.
[I'm an insider, so I'll tell you what really happened lol]
[Author: Blue Dot]
-Pfft.
Choi Yejin let out a quiet laugh.
It slipped out because the situation was so absurd.
"What makes it even worse is that it isn't completely false."
Choi Yejin was certain that most of Blue Dot's, or rather Baek Jiho's, post was true.
It had to be.
[Selling 12 Grade 2 combat artifacts]
[Author: Baek Jiho (21)]
"They're identical to the artifacts among the pile of corpses. So you were the one who killed them, Baek Jiho."
The artifacts he had just posted on the Raid Team board.
They were the very same items she had seen yesterday.
The truth was, she had been in Jungnang-gu yesterday.
The moment she heard reports of gunfire and explosions echoing through Jungnang-gu, she grabbed an artifact and rushed over.
But by the time she arrived, all she saw were countless corpses.
Corpses with shattered skulls, corpses blown into pieces, corpses torn apart...
The place was covered in blood and chunks of organs.
It looked like slaughter carried out with every bit of malice and hatred imaginable.
It was horrifying.
Yet at the same time...
It was awe-inspiring.
To destroy human bodies so thoroughly!
Choi Yejin had been deeply impressed by Baek Jiho's massacre.
There were rarely sane people among high-ranking Hunters to begin with.
As a Hunter near the highest floors, she was far from normal herself.
Choi Yejin muttered quietly.
"It's been a while since someone useful showed up. With this much combat power... He's definitely a Hard-rank Hunter, and probably just below the highest floors."
Baek Jiho.
He claimed to be on Floor 21, but... his actual Floor had to be much higher.
That was why she was looking forward to it.
"Floor 41. We might be able to clear it soon."
If three Hard-rank Hunters gathered, couldn't they somehow clear Floor 41?
Recruit Baek Jiho into the party.
Rescue the isolated Kim Taeseok.
Then clear Floor 41 somehow.
That was what Choi Yejin had in mind.
"I wish the weekend would come sooner."
Clink.
She swirled her rocks glass and murmured softly.
* * *
That afternoon, I called Na Hyeji over.
It was time to climb Floor 21.
-Iing Iing.
"Iing Iing, welcome."
I greeted Iing Iing first.
I gave her a shoulder ride and patted her head.
Thanks to Iing Iing yesterday, I found that Chinese submarine and blew the damn thing to hell.
What a good little girl she was!
Hyeji-ssi muttered beside me.
"Jiho-ssi. Why aren't you welcoming me too?"
"Hyeji-ssi, the fairy one-click freeloader, has been demoted from an EX-grade porter to an SSS-grade porter."
"What? What are you suddenly talking about?"
"You're getting paid starting today."
"Ah. We did agree on that, didn't we? But what are EX and SSS supposed to mean?"
"Your rank in my heart."
"?"
Na Hyeji had been demoted from EX-grade to SSS-grade.
It was because she would start receiving a porter allowance after reaching Floor 21.
Ah... I missed the unpaid porter Na Hyeji!
She had been such a nice Magnet Pet with no maintenance cost.
Now that we had reached Floor 21, I had to give her a cut of the profits every single time.
What a waste.
Still... I had to give her what she was owed.
I couldn't keep using a porter without pay forever.
I might be a bastard without much conscience, but I wasn't low enough to steal someone else's wages.
I still remembered how miserable it felt when I didn't get minimum wage while working nights at a convenience store.
Anyway.
"Hyeji-ssi. Today, we're going to Tower Floor 21."
"Right."
-Iing Iing.
"We're going to kill a ton of Golems and clean out their Magic Stones!"
The Floor we were going to today was Floor 21.
Golems appeared from Floor 21 onward.
And Golems dropped Magic Stones.
Magic Stones were loot gathered not only from Golems, but extensively throughout the Middle Floors, from Floor 21 all the way to the High Floors.
The main use for Magic Stones was power generation.
Magic Stone power generation was so economical that it blew nuclear power out of the water, and it was completely clean, pollution-free energy.
Apparently, places like the United States and Europe had already commercialized Magic Stone power generation.
They had replaced dozens of percent of their total electricity production with Magic Stone power.
Of course, that was nothing more than a dream for Korea.
There were only a few hundred Hunters who had gone beyond the latter half of the Middle Floors, so they couldn't secure a stable supply of Magic Stones.
They had no choice but to export every Magic Stone they obtained.
That was why Korea currently didn't have a single Magic Stone power plant.
'But who am I?'
The Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.
And the owner of a million volts, carrying on the legacy of that electric rat bastard!
"I'll take responsibility for the Republic of Korea's power supply!"
Through Extreme Lunatic Hell Magic Stone gathering, I would save this country's energy industry!
A true savior didn't just save lives. They saved the economy and national defense too.
"We'll mine a ton of Magic Stones and make Korea's electricity bills cheap! Make the Republic of Korea's economy and industry great again! Make Korea great again!"
-Iing!!!
I thrust my fist into the air.
Iing Iing copied me and raised her tiny fist.
Hyeji-ssi muttered beside us, "It'd be a disaster if she caught his weird personality..."
That was enough morale-boosting.
It was time to leave.
"Enter the Tower."
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 21)]
[Na Hyeji (Republic of Korea: Floor 21)]
[Please select a Floor to enter.]
"Floor 21."
[Entering Tower Floor 21.]
The Floor 21 raid had begun.
* * *
Flash!
The bright light faded.
I slowly looked around.
The first thing I saw was a ruined city.
The buildings made of stone and wood were all old and broken.
The roads, paved with fitted stones, were cracked all over.
A fantasy city reduced to ruins.
This was what the latter part of the Middle Floors was like.
Hyeji-ssi looked around and murmured.
"What a desolate view. If it were intact, it would look like a medieval European city. It'd be really beautiful."
It was a shame, for sure.
I liked fantasy, okay?
If this city had been intact, I could have seen a cityscape straight out of medieval fantasy.
Anyway.
"Shall we go?"
"Yes. Let's go."
Ppororong.
We rose into the sky with fairy telekinesis.
High above the ruins, I looked down.
Large stone dolls wandered between the collapsed buildings.
"So that's a Golem."
It was... around three meters tall, maybe.
A huge doll made entirely of stone.
Blue circuits were engraved across its surface.
A fist-sized blue stone embedded in its chest, a Magic Stone, gave off a bright glow.
A red aura swirled from its eyes and mouth as it scanned the area.
An artificial life-form and war machine said to have been created by the alchemists of the Tower's world.
A Golem.
They weren't actually easy to kill.
Their massive bodies, immense weight, and fast movements gave them terrifying close-combat abilities.
It took five Middle Floors Normal Hunters working together just to barely kill one.
But that was a story for ordinary people.
"Put the target in the center and flip the switch."
One Railgun click from me was enough to one-shot it.
-Booom!
The metal projectile I fired, an Orc axehead, ripped through the air with a thunderous roar.
Then...
-Krakrakrakaboom!
The projectile pierced straight through its head.
It tore through the buildings behind it as well.
The buildings collapsed in a heap from the impact.
-Thud...
The headless Golem fell a moment later.
A thick cloud of dust rose into the air.
Easy.
"Still, it feels wasteful to use an Orc axehead every time I kill a Golem..."
The Tower only allowed materials from within the Tower to be brought inside...
So I had brought a whole pile of Orc axeheads for the time being.
But using Orc axeheads for Railgun was clearly overkill.
When I fired a three-kilogram hunk of metal...
It pierced right through a Golem's skull and completely wrecked the buildings and ground behind it...
There was no need to fire something so heavy.
It wasted mana too.
I decided.
"When we get back, I should find some metal chunks specifically for Railgun projectiles."
Would metal projectiles around one hundred grams be about right?
Anyway.
I remained in the air and kept firing Railgun.
Railgun had a range measured in kilometers.
That made it possible to snipe every Golem in the city from one spot.
-Booom!
-Booom!
-Booom!
-Booom!
Every blast sent another Golem crashing down.
The ruins were destroyed alongside them by the metal projectiles.
The city, already a ruin, became even more devastated.
"Put the target in the center and flip the switch. Put the target in the center and flip the switch..."
"Why do you keep muttering that?"
"Put the target in the center..."
"Hello?"
I kept killing Golems.
Still.
Why were these Golems so spread out?
It was annoying having to deal with them one by one.
If they had gathered in one place, I could have wiped them all out at once with Fireball or Water Jet.
Maybe because this was the first Golem Floor, they rarely formed groups and just wandered around separately.
As I destroyed the city and the Golems at the same time, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
'Come to think of it... I'm supposed to meet Choi Yejin this weekend.'
This weekend.
I had a sparring match scheduled with Choi Yejin.
This body, the Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.
I was going to throw hands with a Hard-rank ordinary person!
And I could only use physical ability!
If we were on the same Floor, I was confident I would crush her.
Because I was the Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter.
My growth rate was different from some Hard-rank ordinary person's.
But... Choi Yejin was a Floor 41 Hunter.
A Hunter of the highest floors.
Meanwhile, I was only on Floor 21.
'...Could I actually get crushed?'
Ah, that couldn't happen.
I'm Extreme Lunatic Hell.
If this body, a master at the peak, got crushed by some Hard-rank ordinary person, my pride would take a huge hit.
But I had always been skinny.
And I was a clumsy bastard who had never exercised in my life, so I didn't think I could fight properly using my body.
"Hmm... Should I practice using my body first?"
Still, I had become a Hunter, and my physical ability had risen a lot.
Maybe it would be doable if I just learned how to fight?
Glance.
I turned my eyes toward the ones wandering on the ground.
Golems.
Should I test my external martial arts on those guys?
They would be like punching bags.
No, Golems were stone instead of sand, so should I call them stone bags?
"Iing Iing. Let's descend toward that Golem. I need to try some close combat."
-Iing Iing!
Ppororong.
Iing Iing carried me over to a Golem.
The distance between us gradually closed.
I muttered.
"It's even damn bigger up close."
I hadn't realized it from far away...
But seeing a three-meter-tall hunk of stone walking around was seriously intimidating.
Three meters was taller than the ceiling of an ordinary house.
It didn't sound all that big when you just heard the number, but it was twice the size of an ordinary person.
Anyway.
-Lightly.
I landed on the ground.
Hummmmm.
The red light in the Golem's eyes deepened when it spotted me.
-Graaaaaaah!
With a mechanical roar, it began charging toward me with heavy steps.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud!
It approached while kicking up thick dust.
I cast a spell.
"Earth Manipulation."
-Krrrack!
Dirt and rocks surged from the ground, knocking it down and pinning it in place.
Before experiencing actual combat, I would test my physical ability first.
I approached it.
"Straight punch! Agh!"
I threw a punch.
It was the straight-punch motion from the taekwondo I had learned as a kid.
My parents had sent me to a taekwondo academy when I was in elementary school.
I remembered it being absolute torture.
Because I hated exercise.
Anyway.
My fist shot forward and struck its stone arm!
Then...
-Boom!
-Graaaaaaah!
Its arm cracked apart.
It was fascinating.
"Wow, this hard stone shattered from my punch?"
Even though I was the Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter, my physical ability seemed far more incredible than I had imagined.
I had half suspected it when I pulled an Orc Warrior's arm out on Floor 13.
But I had already reached the realm of superhumans!
I hadn't really felt it because I had been clicking magic all the time.
Ghk!
I couldn't contain my frustration.
"Strength mages are heretics, yet I've become a strength mage...! Heavens!"
"No, Jiho-ssi! Did you just break stone with your fist?!"
"Yes."
"No... Is that even possible? Fine, your magic is special because you're Jiho-ssi. But no matter how I look at it, that isn't physical ability at the Middle Floors level..."
"Right? It's surprising to me too. I guess strength mages really are the trend."
"..."
"I didn't want to become some strength mage with no foundation... But I can't help it. The entire world wants me to become a strength mage, so I have no choice but to accept my fate!"
I had become a strength mage!
That meant I could easily smash something like a Golem with my physical ability.
I used magic.
"The magic that makes a Golem's head explode!"
What I meant was that I smashed the Golem's skull with my fist.
My fist hit its head.
-Boom!
Its head shattered into pieces.
The stone doll stopped struggling and fell silent.
Stone fragments scattered down around my feet.
It felt strangely satisfying.
'There's something... satisfying about the feel of it?'
Massacring enemies with magic.
There was a thrill to it.
I had experienced the exhilarating high of grinding monsters apart with overwhelming firepower.
But directly beating an enemy to death with my own hands had its own appeal.
It had a crisp impact, you could say.
"Should I focus on punching this Floor?"
I needed practice before throwing hands with Choi Yejin anyway.
And my opponents were Golems.
Honestly, if I had been fighting living monsters like Orcs or Goblins, I wouldn't have used my fists.
Because blood would get on my hands.
Gross, gross.
But my opponents were Golems!
I could hit them and blow them apart as much as I wanted without a drop of blood splashing on me!
Only some stone fragments would fly out!
I raised my fist.
"I'm going to become a fighting master!"
"No, Jiho-ssi. Why are you using your fists when you have perfectly good magic? Just use magic like you normally do. What on earth are you doing?"
"I'm going to throw hands with Choi Yejin this weekend!"
"Throw hands, what... No, wait?! Choi Yejin? You mean our country's second Hard-rank Hunter...?!"
"Wait for me, Choi Yejin! This body, the Extreme Lunatic Hell Fighter, will teach you a lesson!"
"Jiho-ssi! What do you mean you're going to fight Choi Yejin?!"
-Iing Iing!
Leaving Hyeji-ssi panicking behind me, I clenched my fist and took down the Golems one by one.
-Thud thud thud thud thud!
Whenever I spotted a charging Golem.
Krrrack!
I casually restrained it with Earth Manipulation Magic.
I bound both its legs and one arm.
Now it could only use its right arm.
'This should be a suitable practice opponent.'
Feeling safe, I approached it.
-Graaaaaaah!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
It swung its only movable arm around.
The huge arm moved pretty fast.
I slipped past its swings and closed in.
'It's moving incredibly fast... but it's surprisingly easy to dodge. My dynamic vision must have improved too, just like a Hunter's should.'
Before, it would have been so fast that I could only see an afterimage.
Now I could clearly perceive its movements, almost as if I were watching frame by frame.
A Hunter's overall physical ability improved as they climbed the Tower.
That was why my dynamic vision had gotten better.
'Then why is my game rank still Bronze?'
My brain was sharp, as expected of an intelligence mage.
I had become a Hunter, so my physical abilities, including my dynamic vision, should have improved too.
Yet I was still a Bronze scrub.
It was probably because I had bad teammates.
With my game sense and physical ability, I should have reached the glorious and brilliant Silver tier long ago.
But I kept getting ordinary troll teammates because my team luck was terrible, so I could never win!
A trash team-dependent game!
Anyway.
-Whoosh! Whoosh!
I dodged the Golem's swinging arm and approached.
"Shoryuken!"
I jumped and thrust my fist up.
Then...
-Bang!
Its jaw shattered under my fist, scattering a pile of fragments.
Thud.
The Golem fell helplessly.
"Good. Should I fight a Golem with both arms free next?"
"Jiho-ssi! What do you mean you're fighting Choi Yejin?!"
"Why do you keep asking? It's not a big deal. We just agreed to have a light spar. She donated 200 billion won because she wanted to meet me."
"Two hundred billion won?"
"Thanks to that, I think I can move to Hannam-dong soon."
I kept killing Golems while chatting with Hyeji-ssi.
At first, I fought Golems with both legs and one arm bound.
Then Golems with only their feet bound.
Then Golems that were completely free.
I knocked them down one after another with my fists.
"Dempsey Roll!"
"Imagine Breaker!"
"Executive Punch!"
Bang bang bang bang bang!
The Golems hit by my fists shattered in places and fell one by one.
Without relying on magic, I had overwhelmed the Golems with nothing but the strength of my body!
To be powerful enough to deal with those stone monsters bare-handed...
I was proud of myself.
"Not just internal arts, but unmatched in external arts too! Baek Jiho, you bastard! What can't you do?!"
"This is a little ridiculous. No, really. How are you smashing them bare-handed..."
"That's me."
Thinking about it, it was obvious.
This body had pulled Orc Warrior arms out like pulling radishes on Floor 13.
After reaching Floor 21, I should at least be able to break stone.
That was how I hunted Golems with my fists.
[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 21)]
[You have completed Tower Floor 21.]
[You have defeated 151 Rock Golems (300).]
[Points are being calculated.]
[Tower Floor 22 has been unlocked.]
[Returning.]
I had killed 151 Golems.
Wait for me, Choi Yejin!
I'll take you on with my fists!
"...But Jiho-ssi. Why are you using your fists instead of a sword? Don't tell me you're planning to use your fists in the sparring match?"
"Strength mages don't use stuff like swords."
"..."
I had cleared Floor 21.
Footnotes:
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