WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 11
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[Wouldn't suicide grinding work?]
You can increase your inventory by looting a dead person's belongings. Couldn't you duplicate things by grinding that out?
-Haven't died yet, huh?
└ Yeah, how do you know?
└ Dead people lose five slots at a time.
└?
└ Die four times and your inventory has zero slots.
└ Ah
* * *
Unlike the one he had encountered before, the Sack of the Dead held quite a lot.
None of it appeared to be the result of hunting monsters. Most of it seemed to have been acquired by hunting people.
‘They probably would've been better off spending that time hunting properly.’
There was a lot, but nothing particularly worthwhile.
Various fruits, gathered from who knew where.
Mostly damaged hides and torn cloth.
The club given out at the beginning.
Starting clothes as well.
“Oh.”
Then, further inside, he finally found what he had been looking for. The skill coins the deceased had carried.
‘Two.’
Was their level low?
Or had they lost or sold some?
There were far too few skill coins for someone who had hunted people, but he decided to be grateful for what he got.
‘They're both lowest-grade silver-gray, but that can't be helped. The first one is... Accuracy Correction? There's a skill like that?’
[Auxiliary: Accuracy Correction]
[Corrects the accuracy of throwing or projectile-type skills and magic, sending them closer to their target.]
[Can be enhanced by synthesizing identical skills.]
‘It is a skill I could use.’
He did not have a bow, but it seemed like it could help when he used a throwing axe. The problem was that fitting it into his Skill Slots would be awkward.
‘Strength Enhancement has to stay equipped, and I can't take out Heavy Attack... Maybe I should equip it at range, throw the axe, then switch back to Heavy Attack.’
It was extremely inconvenient.
At least he could separate his consciousness from his Avatar's actions and operate the system independently, so it did not seem like it would cause a major problem. Still, it was not very efficient.
‘The other one is... Hmm.’
[Search: Find Water]
[Identifies the direction where water can be found.]
[Can be enhanced by synthesizing identical skills.]
‘Water is important.’
He surveyed the terrain from the sky while listening for sounds, cross-checking the two.
If he had simply been dropped into a forest without any of that, and this skill had appeared under those circumstances, he might have taken it.
‘If I were somewhere like a desert instead of a forest like this, it would definitely be useful.’
Of course, it wouldn't have been much help to the deceased. After turning the skill coin over in his hand for a moment, he put it in his inventory.
‘I’ll keep this, toss this...’
After sorting through the deceased's sack, Seo Hajin used it on his own inventory to expand its capacity.
He now had 30+5 slots.
Unless something unusual happened, he did not think he would have to throw things away because he ran out of space.
“No. Now that I think about it, I shouldn't just throw these away. I should make use of them.”
The miscellaneous things he had set aside to discard.
Looking again at the damaged hides and torn cloth, he entered the system marketplace.
“More people are shedding the Provisional label.”
There were more listings in the marketplace, just as there were more posts on the community board. There was more ordinary junk, and even skill coins took up more pages than before.
‘What should I search for? Hide processing? Maybe leather...?’
What skill would he need to make something using hides or cloth?
If there was nothing suitable, he would have to buy tools and make things by hand, but he had no time to spend on that.
“Ah. This is it.”
[Survival: Crude Crafting]
[Uses materials in your possession to create items necessary for survival.]
[Finished products are of low quality.]
[Can be enhanced by synthesizing identical skills.]
The skill he wanted was right there.
Surprisingly, there were quite a few identical listings. It seemed people had picked it because they thought it would be useful, only to sell it once they realized it was worse than monster drops.
‘Monster drops are better, but that doesn't mean the item I want will drop.’
It cost 10 Points.
That was not expensive for a skill coin, so he quickly bought one. Then, after hesitating for a moment, he bought two more.
‘Thirty Points isn't much of a burden.’
He had bought three because he wanted to check the detail stating that identical skills could be synthesized for enhancement.
If he was making something anyway, would it not be better if the quality was even a little higher?
“Huh?”
Soon, though, he realized he had misunderstood something.
He had thought skill enhancement simply meant combining two copies of the same skill to make it stronger. That was not the case.
[2/10]
“Ten?”
Not one, but ten.
Since one base skill was needed, that meant he needed eleven in total.
He had just bought three, so he needed eight more.
‘That's unexpected.’
He thought about it for a moment, but he had already consumed two. If he stopped now, he would have spent Points without changing anything.
It was not as though he lacked Points, so he decided to buy the remaining eight and complete the enhancement.
There were plenty of listings.
However, once he started buying them one at a time, the listed coins began quietly disappearing. It seemed people had noticed someone was sweeping up the listings.
[Would you like to purchase?]
[Would you like to purchase?]
He kept confirming the purchase windows and gathered skill coins.
Large chunks of Points disappeared, but fortunately, he had nowhere else to spend them.
‘Let's do it right away.’
[Skill Enhancement Successful!]
[‘Survival: Crude Crafting’ has been enhanced to ‘Survival: Crafting.’]
[Survival: Crafting]
[Uses materials in your possession to create items necessary for survival and combat.]
[Finished products are of ordinary quality.]
[Can be enhanced by synthesizing identical skills.]
[Storable Designs: 5,000]
The modifier “crude” was gone.
The border around the skill had also changed to green.
“It said the finished products would be low quality, and that changed to ordinary too.”
It was definitely better than before.
Whether it was worth a total of 110 Points remained to be seen, but one thing was certain. He would have far more opportunities to use it from now on.
“Hmm. First...”
He looked at the miscellaneous things from the villain's bundle, which he had laid on the ground beside him.
Originally, he had intended to throw them away.
If he used them, he could make clothes, blankets, mats, and more.
‘I can find a safe place somehow, but I should improve my sleeping conditions.’
He also needed various tools for odd jobs.
He could use the axe he already had, but he would have to make things like shovels and pickaxes separately.
‘Buying every single one would be wasteful too.’
* * *
There was one more thing he had misunderstood.
‘Material processing is separate.’
[Crafting] was almost exclusively for making finished products. The basic materials needed to make them had to be prepared in advance.
‘It can process things to a certain extent, but if they aren't processed at all, it takes far too long.’
The materials easiest to process, such as fiber, cloth, and hide, seemed manageable.
The problem was that the basic hide was raw hide that had not been tanned.
After considering various options, Seo Hajin eventually bought several more skills from the marketplace.
[Leatherworking]
[Woodworking]
[Fiber Processing]
The three together cost 100 Points.
Even after prices had fallen slightly, they still cost that much.
‘As the number of users grows, the processors are making less money too.’
That was inevitable as supply increased.
The number of consumers was growing as well, but supply was increasing even faster.
It seemed people were beginning to shut down their processing businesses and sell the skills themselves.
Thanks to that, he was able to buy them cheaply. He stared at the three skills for a moment, then decided to combine them into one.
Some skills could be synthesized with others from similar branches, and processing skills were one such case.
The downside was that future enhancement would require an identical synthesized skill.
‘I don't plan to enhance it.’
Lowest-grade was enough.
It was not as though he intended to use incredibly expensive, rare materials.
He combined the three processing skills.
The three inventory slots became one, and the skill names merged into one as well.
[Skill: Basic Material Processing]
[Can easily refine and process basic materials such as leather, wood, and fibers.]
[Storable Designs: 3,000]
“I probably could've started with this... It can make finished products too.”
Instead of investing in [Crafting], he could have processed raw materials into finished products.
Still, it had not been a waste of money.
There was probably a difference in quality between simply processing materials into a desired form and crafting an actual finished product.
‘And this one was enhanced by one stage, so it should be better.’
The storable designs had each been 1,000. Once combined, they simply added together, becoming 3,000.
‘Crafting had 5,000.’
That one had also started at 1,000, but it had increased when he enhanced it by one stage.
Space for 5,000 designs.
Could he even fill all of that?
‘I should sort the categories in advance.’
If he saved designs at random, finding them later would be troublesome. Since they could be divided by type, materials, and more, he decided to set things up beforehand.
‘Should I have left it alone?’
It already felt like a lot of work before he had even begun.
Still, once he set it up, there was not much left to do afterward.
“Let's start with this.”
The first thing he crafted was clothing for ‘No. 1.’
The wolf had fur of its own, but perhaps because it was still young, its fur was thin and coarse.
Its poor condition might have been due to malnutrition, but either way, the nights in this forest were quite cold.
Before he obtained the hooded vest, Seo Hajin had shivered through the night himself. When he summoned the wolf at night, it would whine miserably, so he would return it to his inventory.
Since he could not expect it to guard the area while he slept, he intended to compensate by making it clothes.
The resulting wolfskin clothes fit the wolf's size exactly. Perhaps due to a system effect, they adjusted even more snugly once he put them on.
Since they were made from wolf hide, it was difficult to tell from a distance that the wolf was wearing additional clothing.
Still, it was clearly warmer.
“Now I'll be able to sleep a little better.”
He could hardly expect it to fight something off. It would be enough if it stayed alert and woke him.
“Hmm. I've got the hang of it now.”
Making the wolf's clothes had also served as a bit of practice. Using the experience he gained through that process, he began making clothes for his own Avatar as well.
Several pieces of old cloth taken from the villain, along with someone's starting clothes.
He also had vine grass and fibers from other stem plants, gathered regularly from the area around him.
Using those, he wove new cloth and made clothes from it.
The fabric was tough and rough.
He made cargo-style pants and a short-sleeved shirt that allowed easier movement.
At first, it felt scratchy against his skin, but after processing it again, it became tolerable.
“I'm finally wearing actual clothes.”
He had not found fibers as soft as cotton yet, so he could not make underwear.
Still, he made another bracer of similar quality to the one he had obtained from Wolves and put it on his right arm.
He also made a wolfskin cloak that he could wear comfortably and use as a blanket or mat when needed.
The part that gave him trouble for over a day was making shoes.
That was not easy either.
‘I should probably give up on comfort to some degree.’
The materials he could acquire nearby or from the marketplace had limits. Was it too much to expect the comfort of ordinary shoes from home?
Still, after spending another day focused on the task, he managed to create something that felt roughly comparable to the combat boots he had worn during his military service.
The shape was similar too.
That was only natural, since he had pictured combat boots or safety boots while making them.
‘Without synthetic materials, I'll have to process leather for the insoles... These will wear out faster than I thought.’
Fortunately, he could keep acquiring leather.
He put on the completed combat boots, checked several things that needed adjustment, then repeatedly reworked them.
The resulting design.
For the moment, he finalized it.
After putting on the newly crafted pair, he checked his current appearance in the system window.
‘Now I finally look a little like a person.’
The clothes were rough, but he was wearing them.
He had shoes too.
He still lacked underwear and socks, but once he found the right fiber blend, he could solve that problem too.
‘People are already talking about it quite a bit.’
The community board was discussing various ratios. Which plant fibers and animal fur could be mixed to create something with a feel similar to cotton, and so on.
One particularly useful tip was that with Fiber Processing, one could finely split animal fur and join it together to make thin, soft thread.
‘I’ll rest a little, then move.’
There was still some time before sunrise.
However, there was not enough time for a proper sleep either, so he found a relatively comfortable position and rested.
Then came the next day.
After moving for about half a day, he realized that the combat-boot style was uncomfortable.
Part of it was because he wore them barefoot, and part of it was because they had not been broken in yet.
More fundamentally, though, they did not breathe.
In the end, he went barefoot again. Deciding that sandals would be better, he began working on those instead.
‘This is definitely better.’
Considering the time he had put into them, the finished sandals were quite satisfying.
They required fewer materials than combat boots, and they were comfortable even barefoot.
Their lack of defensive value was a downside, but their other advantages more than made up for it.
Crack!
After crushing another wolf's head, he put the slightly cracked club into his inventory and took out an intact one.
“Oh. It went up a stage.”
The notification he had been waiting for appeared at just the right time.
The Wolf portion of [Slaughter Record] had increased by another stage.
-Current Record-
Wolf: Stage 5 Nemesis effect applied
1. Impact force increased by 25%
2. Damage taken reduced by 25%
3. Low chance to grant a Critical-Hit Chance
‘Critical hit?’
Perhaps because it had reached Stage 5?
Something new had been added that had not been there before.
He did not fully understand what it meant from the description alone, but he confirmed it during the following fights.
“Ah.”
Very occasionally, a mark would appear on some part of a wolf's body, as though telling him to strike that spot.
A circular mark about the size of a fist.
It was a faint light green, making it difficult to see. The Wolves moved quickly too, so it was not easy to hit the marked spot. But when he managed to strike one, it produced a loud sound and dealt a much heavier blow than usual.
“But if I focus only on hitting that spot, I feel like I'll miss other opportunities.”
Would the area get bigger as the stage increased?
If not, it did not seem worth deliberately aiming for at this point.
“Whew...”
Another fight was over.
Another would begin soon enough, but before that, he quickly climbed a nearby tree. While resting and filling his stomach, he browsed the community board.
‘Hmm?’
There happened to be a discussion on a certain subject, and its contents were alarming.
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