WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 6: 006

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With my Tower entry approaching, I threw myself into gathering information.

In other words, I browsed the Hunter Gallery.

[(Notice) How to Clear Floors 1 to 4]

[(Notice) How to Clear Floors 5 to 9]

[Tips for Spotting Traps]

[How to Cure Paralysis Poison]

[(Notice) How to Clear Floor 10]

[Advice for Beginner Hunters]

Old posts from the Hunter Gallery.

There was barely any information on the middle floors and above, but there were plenty of useful posts about the lower floors.

They were remnants from the Tower's early days.

‘Back then, Hunters didn't just care about money like they do now.’

In the Tower's early days, climbers had scaled it with a sense of duty, earning Points along the way.

The lives of fifty million citizens rested on their shoulders.

How could they not feel responsible?

Yet as time passed, people began giving up or settling for less, one by one.

At some point, Hunters who only kept farming safe, comfortable money on the lower floors, so-called low-floor campers, became the majority.

Still, there had once been many people on the Hunter Gallery who seriously wanted to climb the Tower.

Thanks to that, digging through old posts gave me some fairly solid information on the lower floors and the beginning of the middle floors.

Anyway.

I skimmed through the posts, then came to a conclusion.

‘The lower floors don't seem particularly hard. At this rate, I could probably clear one floor a day.’

The Tower's lower floors didn't seem difficult.

No, to be honest, they looked ridiculously easy.

I'd already faced a Goblin Warrior and a Goblin Shaman during the tutorial.

As long as I had magic, a powerful ability, I should be able to climb through the lower floors quickly.

‘I'd better break through the lower floors as fast as possible. We might have to emigrate.’

This country only had three months left.

I had no choice but to consider emigrating if I wanted to keep my older sister and myself alive.

A Hunter needed to reach at least the middle floors to emigrate, so I intended to get through the lower floors as quickly as I could.

"I've got all the information I need for now..."

I left the old notice section of the Hunter Gallery and clicked the newest-post list.

Countless verification posts filled the screen.

[Hello, I'm a new Hunter. Nice to meet you all.]

[I passed the tutorial.]

[There are seriously so many new Hunters today too. I guess tons of people really are dying.]

[I passed Normal-rank!!!]

[My Tutorial Review]...

There had been lots of new Hunters yesterday, and there were lots again today.

Then one particular post caught my eye.

[I passed Normal-rank!!!]

"Huh? Normal-rank?"

It looked like a Hunter who had cleared the tutorial's Normal-rank difficulty had posted proof.

Curious, I opened it.

[Post Title: I passed Normal-rank!!!]

I got Normal-rank for my tutorial and barely passed.

I seriously almost died.

The Goblin Archer kept firing arrows, and the Dagger Goblins kept stalking me from both sides...

I got hit by two paralysis-poison arrows and cut in the thigh a few times by daggers.

But I didn't give up and fought like hell until the end, so I survived and passed.

I went straight to the hospital after returning...

Thankfully, the injuries aren't serious, so I think I'll recover soon.

└Normal-rank? For real?

└Congrats, your life's set now.

└If you're not part of a Hunter team, want to join ours? One of our members got hurt recently, so we have an opening.

└I sent you a message. Please check it ^^

└If you got Normal-rank, can't you easily reach the middle floors within three months? You might even be able to emigrate if things go well. Jealous.

└└Why three months? You'll get there in a month lol. Your growth is different every time you climb a floor, and your initial abilities are way better too.

└└Posts like this prove the Tower gives results proportional to the danger.

└└If you get Easy-rank, which is piss-easy, you just keep hanging around the lower floors. If you get a higher difficulty, it gives you a ton of rewards. Of course, you have to risk your life for it...

└Why are the comments reacting like this? It's not even Hard-rank, it's only Normal-rank. Why are you all sucking up so much?

└└Hard-rank, my ass. There are only five in this country, and three of them got sold off. There are only two left now.

└└Only Normal-rank? Ninety-five percent of Hunters in this country came from Easy-rank, while only five percent came from Normal-rank. Normal-rank Hunters are nobles in the Hunter world. Hard-rank Hunters are royalty.

└└Normal-rank is basically guaranteed to reach the middle floors. Their success is set in stone. You have to become friends with them no matter what. If you're lucky, you might even get carried to Floor 11 lol.

└└Ohh;; I didn't know Normal-rank was such a big deal.

People had all kinds of reactions to the appearance of a Normal-rank Hunter.

They were jealous, tried to recruit them, asked questions...

Amid all the verification posts, this one was getting far more attention than the rest.

A childish urge suddenly rose in me.

‘They're worshipping someone this much just for Normal-rank. What about me, with Extreme Lunatic Hell difficulty?’

My fingers itched.

I gave in to the urge and typed out a post.

[Post Title: Did you guys know Hard-rank isn't the highest tutorial difficulty?]

[Author: Blue Dot]

I did the tutorial recently,

and I got a Goblin Warrior and Goblin Shaman as opponents.

I got a difficulty higher than Hard-rank;

But who am I?

A prospective Hunter with MAX potential, enough to get assigned Extreme Lunatic Hell difficulty.

I blew up both the Goblin Warrior and Shaman without getting so much as a scratch.

Honestly, I was scared at first,

but once I tried it, it was manageable.

Ask me anything.

"Hehehe."

I posted it and snickered.

Reading it back, it sounded too absurd to be believable.

The responses were exactly what I expected.

└Why the fuck would a Goblin Shaman appear in a tutorial?

└If you're going to bait people, at least do it properly. You should've just said you got Hard-rank difficulty.

└What the hell is Extreme Lunatic Hell? Did you just list every difficulty name that sounded vaguely plausible? This guy's completely ridiculous.

└Lol, this guy definitely isn't a Hunter. He doesn't know how strong Goblin Warriors and Shamans are, so he's writing this kind of delusional crap.

└If a Goblin Shaman really showed up in a tutorial, you'd die in one second. Do you have any idea how strong their Fireballs are?

└Enough with the bullshit.

└You think the Goblin Shaman, gatekeeper of the middle floors, is a joke?

"Tsk, tsk. What foolish creatures. They can't recognize a great man standing right in front of them."

All kinds of hateful comments appeared under my post.

Still, I didn't feel too bad.

Didn't people say silence was scarier than hate comments?

Rather than posting some boring verification thread and quietly disappearing, wasn't it better to get lots of comments like this?

There was also a strange sort of fun to it.

‘I've made these people angry! I can control their emotions!’

The fun of getting attention and stirring other people's emotions.

I suddenly understood.

Ah! So this was why people stirred up trouble online!

‘Not that I'm one of them!’

I placed a hand over my chest.

I had nothing to be ashamed of.

I hadn't lied to bait anyone. I'd only told them what I'd experienced myself.

They simply couldn't believe it because I was so extraordinary that I exceeded common sense.

Anyway.

"Should I get going?"

I rose from my seat and began putting on my equipment.

First, I put on rough cloth clothes, then layered leather armor over them.

A one-handed sword went on my left hip.

A dagger went against my right thigh.

I slung a large leather bag over my back and tightened the laces of my combat boots.

Then I firmly gripped my precious staff, and my preparations were complete.

I muttered quietly.

"Enter Tower."

[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 1)]

[Please select the floor you wish to enter.]

"Floor 1."

[Entering Tower Floor 1.]

Flash!

A bright glow enveloped my body.

* * *

The light faded.

I slowly opened my eyes.

An unfamiliar sight came into view.

The interior of a dark cave.

Torches hung sparsely along the walls, faintly illuminating the surroundings.

The air was cold, and droplets occasionally fell from the stalactites, tickling my ears with their sound.

It looked exactly like the first floor described in the strategy posts.

‘They said clearing the first floor meant finding the exit and leaving.’

Tower Floor 1 was simple.

All I had to do was find the exit portal somewhere in this underground cave and escape.

I glanced behind me.

A portal stood at my back.

It was a Return Portal.

‘Just like they said, there really is a Return Portal. I can run away if things go wrong.’

Unlike the tutorial, every floor of the Tower had a Return Portal at its starting point.

You could stop your attempt midway and return to reality.

That put me at ease.

If a fight turned against me, I could scramble back to the starting point and return to reality.

Of course, I could only enter the Tower once a day.

Once a day passed, the monsters would respawn, and I'd have to start clearing the floor all over again.

Still, having an escape route was better than nothing.

Even now, remembering the tutorial, when I'd nearly been trapped and killed without being able to move, made my teeth grind.

Anyway.

‘Let's go.’

-Step.

I began walking slowly.

Before long, I couldn't help feeling puzzled.

I sensed something strange.

‘It feels like I'm reading the area around me with some sense other than sight.’

The underground cave was dark.

Darker than I'd imagined.

There were torches on the walls, but they weren't very bright.

The cave terrain also created plenty of shadows, making it difficult to get a clear sense of my surroundings.

Yet I could perceive the entire space around me.

The stalactites overhead, the space behind the cave's twisting shadows, even the paths beyond corners outside my line of sight.

I could see it all as clearly as if I were looking at my palm.

It felt as though a three-dimensional map of the space had formed inside my head.

Wondering if that was really the case, I closed my eyes.

I was shocked.

‘What the hell? I can still see my surroundings with my eyes closed!’

Even with my eyes shut, I could vividly perceive everything around me.

I made a guess.

‘Maybe it's because I became a wizard? Like reading the mana in the air to perceive the space around me...’

Back when I was obsessed with fantasy novels, I'd read a few with descriptions like that.

The cliché where a wizard read the mana in the air to perceive the surrounding space.

Come to think of it, I'd experienced something similar in the tutorial.

I'd known exactly where the Goblins were in the darkness.

Maybe this was possible because mana inside the Tower was more abundant than in reality?

Either way, it was good news for me.

"At least I won't get ambushed in the dark."

As a bonus, I wouldn't trip over rocks on the ground either.

I shrugged and kept walking.

After some time...

-Keruk. Keruk!

I heard a Goblin cry.

The distance was... about thirty meters.

There was one.

It was coming this way from the right side of the path ahead.

I prepared a spell.

‘Fireball. Five of them.’

Whoosh!

Five Fireballs flared to life above my staff and began circling.

A moment later, a Goblin came around the corner.

I fired without hesitation.

-Swoooosh!

The Fireballs cut through the darkness.

-Keruk?

The Goblin let out a startled sound as the balls of fire came flying at it the moment it rounded the corner.

The Fireballs slammed into its head.

An explosion followed.

-KWAAAAAANG!

Perhaps because we were inside a cave, the blast thundered through the entire place.

"Argh! My ears!"

It felt like my eardrums were going to burst.

That was way too loud.

As I froze at the unexpected noise...

-Kerururuk! Keruk!

-Kerururuk!

-Kieeeek!

Shrill Goblin cries began ringing out from every direction.

Tap tap tap tap!

Tap tap tap tap!

Footsteps rushed toward me from all around.

The explosion had drawn aggro, and every Goblin in the area was charging this way.

I panicked.

‘Ah... so Fireball magic has a drawback like this.’

The loud explosions attracted a huge amount of aggro.

But I wasn't nervous.

"Honestly, I think I can smash them all no matter how many Goblins come at me."

I'd one-shot both a Goblin Warrior and a Goblin Shaman.

Ordinary Goblins were nothing but trash mobs.

Still, making a huge explosion to deal with a single trash mob seemed like overkill.

And I didn't want to keep listening to those deafening echoes inside a cave.

‘Should I modify the spell? I'll reduce the firepower to one-tenth and make it more efficient instead.’

Right there, I reworked the arrangement of Blue Motes.

I made the overall formation much smaller and precisely adjusted the distances between each particle.

The amount of Blue Motes it consumed dropped sharply.

As a result...

-Whoooooosh...

The maximum of five Fireballs I could previously create became...

Fifty.

‘Fifty... that's a lot.’

Fifty tiny Fireballs spiraled above my staff.

Each Fireball was small, but there were so many that the sight was pretty satisfying.

Just as I finished modifying the spell...

-Kerururuk!

-Kyaaaak!

-Kieeeek!

Goblins began pouring into view.

A green tide surged in beyond the Goblin I'd just killed.

There were a full thirty of them.

It was the perfect number to test my new spell.

I raised my staff.

"Fire."

The Fireballs streaked out in a continuous stream.

-Papapapapapapapap!

Like falling stars.

Or like tracer rounds from the machine guns I'd fired during military service.

A swarm of Fireballs flew toward the Goblins.

-Ker, keruk?!

The Goblin at the very front stiffened at the sudden barrage of Fireballs.

It seemed to instinctively realize something had gone terribly wrong.

But it was too late to run.

-Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop!

The barrage of tiny Fireballs began tearing through the Goblin horde.

Small explosions went off without pause.

With each blast, heads burst apart, limbs snapped off and flew through the air, and torsos were punched through.

A bloody mist rose as pieces of their bodies scattered everywhere.

Was this what it felt like to fire a large-caliber machine gun?

-Kerururuk!

-Kyaaaak!

-Keruk...

Crunch! Splat! Thud! Pat pat...

The Goblins collapsed in heaps.

The heavy stench of blood hit me.

I grimaced.

"Ugh... Should I have just fired one big shot? This is disgusting."

If I'd wiped them out with a high-output explosion, they would have been blown completely apart.

Instead, limbs and chunks of organs had scattered everywhere while still holding their shape, which was even more disgusting.

Ah... there went meat for today too.

-Keruk...

The last Goblin died and fell.

Then silence descended as if the earlier commotion had never happened.

I trudged over and began collecting the loot.

‘They said Goblin daggers sell for thirty thousand won each, right?’

I picked up daggers one after another.

Some were still clutched in severed arms that dangled limply, which was incredibly revolting.

‘Fuck...’

Having to pry open each finger and pull the blood-soaked daggers free was deeply miserable.

Still, I endured and collected them.

‘This is all money! Money! I have to take every last one!’

I gathered every dagger and put them in my bag.

The bag, which had been empty, quickly became heavy.

"Now, let's find the exit."

Finding the exit was easy.

I'd apparently wiped out all the Goblins in this area during the fight, because no more enemies appeared.

I wandered through the cave for about ten minutes.

Soon, I found a mass of light, a portal, sitting in one corner of the cave.

I threw myself into it.

[Baek Jiho (Republic of Korea: Floor 1)]

[Tower Floor 1 has been completed.]

[You have defeated 34 Goblins (1).]

[Points are being calculated.]

[Tower Floor 2 has been unlocked.]

[Returning.]

A glow enveloped my body.

Footnotes:

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