WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 10
──────
He had not learned how to use it from the board. It had come naturally when his provisional status was removed.
Just as the skill options presented at level-up now showed their names, he could see certain details that had been hidden before.
[Crude Beast Collar]
[Tames Wolves or Wolf-type Monsters]
[Can be used on a subdued target]
[If successful, the target is registered in the system and can be managed]
Even after reading the detailed description, some parts remained vague. He filled those gaps with information from the board.
Others had already obtained similar items, and there were Taming Skills as well, so people had compared the two.
Taming Skills
Taming Items
The difference was considerable.
A skill did not truly tame a target. It was said to be closer to bewitching it with magic.
Naturally, it required a constant supply of mana.
Once the mana ran out, the magic was lifted.
Beasts and monsters tamed through skills were not registered in the system. Instead, they were directly linked to the caster's will, making them easy to command with even simple thoughts.
Items, on the other hand, registered the target in the system.
Which meant the creature was treated somewhat like an item.
‘I can put it in my inventory.’
Something those who used Taming Skills could not do.
If it suffered injuries beyond a certain point, it would also be automatically recalled to the inventory.
People said that if it took too much damage in too short a time and died, the target would disappear and only the item would be recovered.
As long as that did not happen, it seemed he could feed it through the inventory and let it recover.
‘At least tamed creatures don't count toward my carry weight.’
Even as a pup, it weighed a fair amount. It would only grow heavier, so it would eventually become a burden.
Thankfully, recalling it to the inventory did not apply its weight.
‘If another collar drops, I might get a No. 2. There could be even more later... Hm.’
A barbarian warrior leading around a pack of wolves.
It felt a little like an old online game's solo grinding build, but as long as feeding them meat did not become too expensive, he wanted to try it.
‘It isn't without downsides, though.’
Unlike a Taming Skill, this did not feel connected to the user's will. He could not give orders more complex than the target's intelligence could handle.
Even this wolf only properly understood around two simple commands.
Still, that was enough.
‘It doesn't react at all to things it can't do, so it's nice and simple.’
[Wolf Pup]
[Name: Companion No. 1]
[Level: 1]
[Health: 95 / 100]
[Hunger Status: Good]
[Inventory: 3 / 5]
That was an advantage monsters tamed through skills did not have.
By connecting to the system, it gained several useful features.
He could name it and raise its level.
Unlike a monster tamed through a skill, it could keep traveling with him and grow alongside him as long as it did not die.
It even had an inventory.
It did not share his inventory. It possessed its own, and that inventory was linked to his.
In other words, from his perspective, it was like having five extra slots connected to his own. Twenty-five plus five.
‘It can carry quite a bit of weight, too.’
It was still a wolf pup, smaller and weaker-looking than the others, but it could already carry around thirty kilograms.
Of course, filling it that heavily made it hungry quickly. Still, it had no trouble moving around.
An inventory also meant it could pick up items.
It was not useful in combat yet, but it was extremely convenient for collecting items dropped during a fight.
It even had an automatic sorting setting.
If an item it picked up was already in his inventory, it would periodically transfer the item to him and merge it with the existing stack.
That changed things. Unless something unusual happened, he no longer had to wait for a battle to die down before hurriedly gathering nearby items.
Whether because it was the same species or because their target was clear, the wolves did not attack it.
Thanks to that, he could fight without concern while No. 1 quietly wandered around picking things up.
“Hmm.”
The pup approached silently and gave its tail a small wag.
Seo Hajin lowered himself slightly to pet it, then checked the footprints continuing across the nearby ground.
In a forest, footprints were often lost among grass and fallen leaves. No. 1 was bridging those gaps for him.
He had given it the blunt name Companion No. 1 partly because he did not want to grow attached in case it died, but also because he had, quite literally, gained a companion.
A trustworthy companion.
Those were hard to find in the world these days.
He might have friends, but even among them, few would be able to throw themselves into danger and sacrifice themselves for him in a life-or-death situation.
‘Or maybe none at all.’
Of course, this one had not become his companion through years of friendship. It was simply connected to him through the system.
It might have been an unfair arrangement from the wolf's perspective, but he decided he would continue compensating it for that.
For one thing, he did not feed it Wolf Meat.
It seemed willing to eat it if he gave it some, but feeding wolf to a wolf somehow felt wrong. He also was not sure whether he should be doing that.
Instead, he bought meat listed by other users on the system marketplace. Mostly rabbit meat. It was the cheapest, and No. 1 ate it well.
Still, continuing to buy meat to feed it did not seem right. He found himself wondering whether he should buy a bow and start practicing now.
‘Small animals are quicker to hunt with a bow.’
He intended to practice throwing axes whenever he could, but even considering only the number of attempts he could make, they could not compete with arrows.
‘The inventory means I can just carry more of them, but... I'll think about this some more.’
The tracking continued during all of this.
There were a few minor fights along the way, but because a large group had rushed through here, only scattered wolves remained.
“...”
As he traveled, Seo Hajin recalled the wolf that had been walking a couple of steps ahead and pressed himself against a nearby tree.
‘Blood.’
There was blood on the ground.
Scattered traces of it.
But it did not look like there had been a fight.
Whoosh.
He looped a rope over a branch and climbed up. Then he moved Multiple Viewpoints higher as well, scanning the area in every direction.
He had entered an increasingly dangerous area, so he needed to be careful moving on the ground. Seeing blood made him even more alert.
‘Should I not have come here?’
There was no particular reason for him to come this way.
He simply wanted to eliminate an unknown variable, people who might target him at any moment.
Their possessions and possible inventory slot expansions were secondary concerns.
More than that, he wanted to be certain they would leave this place somehow.
‘Ah.’
Then, as he scanned the surroundings through Multiple Viewpoints, his gaze stopped in one place.
Sitting on a branch, he looked in the same direction and used his own eyes to cover what he could not see from above.
At roughly the same height, on a distant branch.
Through a gap in the leaves, a pair of bright yellow animal eyes stared back at him.
‘A leopard.’
The leopard was looking at him too.
It might have spotted him while he was still below.
But it did not move from where it was. Seo Hajin immediately understood why.
‘Ah.’
A corpse was draped across the branch where it sat.
Judging from its appearance, it was one of the people who had been chasing the man dressed like an elf earlier.
Had the blood below been spilled while the leopard carried the body up here? The lack of signs of a fight probably meant it had struck a vital spot in one blow, before the victim could even resist.
It had likely pounced on whoever had been running at the very back during the chase.
Thinking about it gave him a slight chill.
“...”
Yet the leopard simply watched him quietly. It did not growl or bare its fangs.
Had it already finished hunting?
Or did it not see him as an enemy?
‘It could be both.’
It even lay down slightly and began relaxing.
It did not eat the prey it had hunted.
‘Does it usually leave food for later?’
He did not know much about leopards.
He wondered whether he should have watched more nature documentaries, but it might only look like an Earth leopard. Its habits could be entirely different.
‘One thing's certain. I can't let my guard down.’
It was different from wolves.
Wolves showed themselves openly. They growled and made noise.
But a leopard was different.
It was extremely quiet.
Yet there was something sharp about it.
‘I don't like uncertain variables.’
He briefly considered the throwing axes in his inventory, then gave a small shake of his head.
He had not practiced enough yet.
He was not even sure whether he could hit it from this distance, much less land a proper blow.
Rrraow.
Just as he considered leaving, an unwelcome sound came from somewhere not far away.
The leopard instantly raised its upper body.
Seo Hajin did the opposite. He lowered himself and pressed even closer to the tree trunk.
At the same time, he scanned the direction of the sound from above and caught sight of something moving around three hundred meters away.
Between the thick leaves.
Striped fur, something he had only seen in photos and videos, was visible there.
Grrrr.
For the first time, the leopard showed its fangs.
But it seemed like no more than a token show of defiance.
Its gaze was fixed not on Seo Hajin, but in the direction of the tiger's call. He also saw it press a forepaw firmly against the corpse lying beside it.
‘So tigers steal prey from them too.’
The creature was gradually drawing closer.
Had it smelled blood?
Could it climb trees?
‘Higher.’
Seo Hajin carefully climbed higher, without pushing himself too far.
Strangely enough, after watching him for a moment, the leopard picked up the corpse and climbed higher as well.
It could have been a coincidence.
But Seo Hajin thought the leopard seemed intelligent enough for that.
“...”
He silently hid behind thick branches and leaves.
Through the gaps, he could gradually see the tiger with his own eyes now.
Thump. Thump.
The tiger approached with the leisurely gait of something out for a walk. Its body was enormous, truly worthy of being called house-sized.
It stopped beneath the tree where the leopard was hiding, sniffed the air, made a low rumbling sound, then started walking again.
It came near Seo Hajin's tree next, but did not stop. It passed by and only stopped again near the bloodstains.
It sniffed around again.
Watching quietly from above, Seo Hajin noticed a long trail of blood along the route the tiger had taken.
It had not been there before.
Which meant the tiger had left it.
‘Is it hurt?’
The thought occurred to him, but somehow that did not seem right.
Then the tiger suddenly heaved, its throat moving.
Like a cat coughing up a hairball, it gagged and spat something out.
It was someone's half-crushed head.
‘As expected.’
The long blood trail belonged to a person.
Probably one of the people who had entered the tiger's territory earlier.
‘It can swallow even a head whole.’
It had spat it out again, but it had swallowed it in the first place.
It looked capable of swallowing most small animals whole.
Grrrrr.
The tiger did not swallow the human head again. It merely looked slowly around its surroundings, its hanging tail swaying.
Then, at some point, it snorted through its nose, turned around, and headed back the way it had come.
Gulp.
Seo Hajin swallowed dryly.
He could not think of anything.
Every thought about how to take it down, whether it had an opening, whether it had a weakness, all of it felt meaningless.
One thing was certain.
That thing was the king of this area.
‘If this stage has an Area Boss, it's probably that thing. And if that's really true... killing it would get me something.’
It was only a hypothesis.
But as he watched the tiger slowly wander away, Seo Hajin became more convinced of the hypothesis he had just formed.
‘I need to level up more.’
That was all he could do for now.
Make himself stronger.
He would not treat challenging an Area Boss as a foregone conclusion, but he did not want to die a violent death in a world where creatures like that roamed freely.
If so, becoming stronger was the answer.
A simple calculation.
‘I'll head back for today.’
Everyone who had come this way was probably dead.
The man who had run away, and the people who had chased him.
‘He might have done it on purpose.’
He could not be certain.
But when he saw him earlier, the elf-styled man had seemed to know what lay at the end of this path.
That impression grew stronger when he considered how the man had run straight ahead without wandering around.
‘He lured them here.’
He had surely known that he would die too, but perhaps he had thought it did not matter if he was going to die anyway.
‘He just didn't want to die alone.’
Still.
Before leaving, Seo Hajin checked his inventory and found something unexpected in the wolf's linked inventory.
‘When did it pick this up?’
It was someone's Death Loot.
Could it have belonged to the person dragged away by the leopard?
It seemed the wolf had picked it up where it had been lying near the wolf before Seo Hajin recalled it.
‘I was going to give up, but I got one thing at least.’
He had achieved one of his goals.
Seo Hajin carefully put distance between himself and the tiger, which had already disappeared from sight, and the leopard, which had finally begun tearing into its meal with loud crunches.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
