WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈

Chapter 18

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“...”

The Beastkin boy crossed over in silence, cut the man’s throat without a word, then picked up the Personal Effects bag that appeared beside the naked corpse.

He looked down at the body for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. He remembered his master telling him not to carry corpses because they were too heavy.

Before he could leave, Vulcan, who had climbed into the tree at some point, took the corpse instead.

“I should save it and use it as Tiger bait.”

An opening appeared in midair.

The corpse went inside, and Juggernaut emerged from the other side.

“Our coordination is still a little off, but we’ll get better with practice... You worked hard too, No. 1. Go inside and rest.”

Nod.

Companion No. 1 entered the still-open Subspace and resumed his usual work, using his Skill to dry and grind the various food ingredients stored inside.

“Let’s see...”

Juggernaut and Vulcan remained in the tree.

After checking their main weapons, they prepared for the next hunt.

They had cleared out the Wolves that had gathered in large numbers, but they would respawn again soon.

“Buying the Subspace was a good call.”

It had been an impulsive purchase that stretched his budget at the time, but it was proving extremely useful in hunting and combat.

In particular, if one of them opened an entrance, they could exit through that opening rather than the one they had entered through. It was easy to deceive enemies and catch them off guard that way.

While Juggernaut or Vulcan drew attention, the decoy would enter the Subspace from that side while the other moved elsewhere and opened an exit from the opposite side.

The reason they had been able to beat down enemies numbering well over twice their own without much trouble was this fake teleportation.

Of course, it would become dangerous if both of them were surrounded at once, so managing their positions and distance was important.

‘I could also just pop in and out from the same spot.’

He could not exert physical force outside from within the Subspace, but vanishing even briefly could confuse enemies.

It would be even better if they turned their backs while looking around, wondering where he had gone. Then he could simply come out and hit them.

“Ugh. I need to clean this up.”

There were corpses piled up in the Subspace.

There were nine in total.

Based on what he had seen from above, that was everyone.

‘It looks like they went around the Tiger’s territory.’

They had approached from another direction.

They had probably headed north along the waterway where the Crocodiles lived. Thinking about it himself, that route was likely the safest.

Crocodiles generally did not react unless someone came within about five meters of them. Wolves also rarely entered Crocodile territory except to drink water, making it a good route for avoiding fights.

“Hmm. Detection range...”

An idea came to him.

Seeing Companion No. 1 moving the corpses to a corner of the Subspace, he hurriedly told him not to turn those into powder.

Then came more hunting.

And more hunting.

Vulcan had already reached Level 7 after only a few days. It seemed the experience gained from hunting humans had been greater than what Wolves gave.

‘There must be a reason people hunt other people.’

Humans gave experience when killed too.

He remembered seeing a post saying that higher-level people gave more.

Still, it had only been a one-off event.

He had no intention of specializing in hunting people.

‘Wolves are better in the long run.’

He did not even need to chase Wolves. They came to him on their own.

The hunting would not stop even if he just stood still.

Before, he had run away when too many gathered at once. Now that there were two of them, he was almost glad to see them.

‘Hmm.’

There were still times when rest was unavoidable.

He could not drink shakes in the middle of battle, so he needed to fill his stomach now and then.

During one such break, he saw that the message board had become a little noisy.

When he looked into it, it seemed the people who had died here were blaming one another.

‘What’s there to brag about when you died trying to hunt people?’

-They teleported, I’m telling you.

ㄴBlink-type Skill?

ㄴWho knows

-The two of them killed all nine?

ㄴNot two. There were three. One was some fucking weeb Beastkin character.

ㄴThat’s still three times their number, though?

ㄴThere were Wolves too, apparently. So it was even more.

ㄴDamn, they got wrecked.

-Do they have some insanely good Skill? That sounds juicy.

ㄴYou know Skills don’t drop even if you die, right?

ㄴThey might not have had it equipped.

ㄴAre you crazy? If you had something like that, you’d permanently keep it in one Slot.

No one pitied the dead.

Instead, people seemed curious about how much the Juggernaut party had built up, and were once again licking their lips at the thought of it.

“More might come.”

They would prepare more thoroughly next time, so it might become dangerous.

“I should move the hunting ground a little.”

Wolves appeared anywhere in the forest anyway. It would be better to move somewhere harder to approach from outside.

Gulp, gulp.

Juggernaut and Vulcan each drank from wooden cups that held nearly a liter, draining the shakes inside.

Their spent health recovered, their hunger faded, and the brief poisoned state soon disappeared.

‘It’s good that Toxic Adaptation applies to both of us too.’

Otherwise, Vulcan would have needed to build up poison resistance from the beginning, but the shared effect let him skip that process.

“More importantly, what do we have?”

There were nine Personal Effects bags in his Subspace, picked up in a rush during the chaos.

Since Personal Effects did not stack in one inventory slot, collecting all of them could not have been easy. The Subspace was useful in that regard too.

“There’s no reason to open them one at a time.”

He opened the Subspace for a moment.

Vulcan entered, opened the Personal Effects bags piled carelessly to one side one by one, and dumped out everything inside.

There was no need to worry about anything flying outside the Subspace, so he planned to take everything out first and sort it later.

“You don’t need to worry about this.”

Nod.

Companion No. 1 continued his work.

Vulcan looked over the pile of miscellaneous items at his feet.

First, he separated the clothes and equipment the dead had been wearing. Cloth clothing could be broken down into fibers and reused, while leather could also be used to make other things.

None of the clothes were good enough in quality or performance for him to wear.

Even the leather clothes had failed to properly stop an arrow and had been pierced enough to draw blood.

‘It would be better with compressed cloth layered on the inside.’

That would block arrows and improve insulation and waterproofing.

The downside was that the clothing would become heavier.

That was not something he needed to worry about.

“The equipment is nothing special either. They probably relied on the group’s fighting power rather than individual quality.”

There were several metal weapons, but they were too small for him to use.

“There were bows? I don’t think I saw them use these.”

Maybe they had never taken them out of their inventories.

There were two unstrung bows, but neither was damaged.

After stringing them and pulling them lightly, he decided there was no need to discard or recycle them.

“I had throwing axes, so I didn’t use bows.”

There had been no need to attack distant targets when monsters came to him on their own.

As long as he remained in this field, that would probably continue to be the case.

‘I should give them to No. 1.’

Companion No. 1 had fired a bow before.

He had not specifically set him up for that or given him a related Skill, but he seemed capable of doing better than average.

“Overall... there’s nothing much.”

He had not expected much, honestly.

He had read on the message board that people-hunters generally had poorly stocked inventories.

People who hunted others knew they could be hunted in return. They hid their core assets separately so they could start over even if they died.

He seemed to recall that they also did so because they could not trust the companions traveling with them, regardless of whether a hunt succeeded or failed.

They only kept enough Skills to fill their Slots, so it was difficult to obtain Skills from Personal Effects.

Still, the Personal Effects themselves were loot.

Each one increased inventory capacity by five slots.

“Hm?”

There were Skill Coins.

Two of them, at that.

It seemed two people had not properly equipped them, or one person had been carrying an extra.

Both were the lowest grade.

One was [Cartography], while the other was a Skill he had never seen before.

[Health Visualization]

[Provides visual information on a target’s health.]

[Identifies the remaining health of targets within 20 meters.]

[Can be enhanced by combining identical Skills.]

“Health? Is that different from HP?”

The description alone left him uncertain, so he equipped it in one of Vulcan’s Slots.

New details appeared in the scene before him.

“Ah.”

A red horizontal bar that had not been there before appeared above Companion No. 1’s head.

‘This is that kind of thing.’

Some games showed monster HP, while others did not.

This felt like installing a mod to make something visible that had not been visible before.

‘Where could I use this... Oh.’

After briefly leaving the Subspace and looking around, he found that within twenty meters, he could see health bars even for targets hidden beyond bushes.

‘That means I can see them even when they hide.’

Would targets remain hidden if they had a Skill that blocked detection from Skills like this, or a higher-grade Stealth Skill?

Still, it was interesting for now.

He could also roughly guess why its previous owner had not kept it equipped.

If they had used it to find prey that hid or ran away, they would only have equipped it after their target disappeared.

‘They probably used other Skills in the Slot normally.’

There was one disappointing part.

Since he had equipped it in Vulcan’s Slot, only Vulcan could see the health bars. Juggernaut and the aerial viewpoint still saw nothing different.

‘If I get a chance to turn a Skill into a Bound Skill, I should consider this one too.’

Before that, he needed to check whether identical Skills were listed on the marketplace.

Twenty meters was a somewhat awkward distance.

Perhaps the detection range would increase if he enhanced it.

Then, another thought came to him.

He could use this Skill for boss hunting too.

‘Tigers are good at hiding too.’

Twenty meters was close enough to be practically face-to-face when dealing with a Tiger, but even knowing its position one moment earlier would help.

‘I definitely need to enhance it.’

There was nothing else especially useful.

After sorting the small loot, he gathered the nine Personal Effects bags together.

‘Nine means forty-five slots. Juggernaut has thirty right now, and Vulcan has twenty... It would be best to divide them as evenly as possible, right?’

He considered giving more to Juggernaut, but he did not think of either avatar as the main character just because one had been created first.

So, he added twenty slots to Juggernaut and twenty-five to Vulcan, giving them inventories of fifty and forty-five slots respectively.

Juggernaut, who had originally had thirty slots, and Vulcan, whose slots had more than doubled, both felt much more comfortable.

The Subspace meant he could throw in miscellaneous items without much thought, but having more inventory slots was still clearly better.

‘Companion No. 1’s inventory became ten slots, so I had to keep the linked inventory in mind too. There’s room there now as well.’

Human hunting had happened unintentionally.

He was not sure whether it could really be called hunting, but he had gained loot from it regardless.

When he checked the message board again, it was still noisy.

The topic had changed from the villain group in question to something else.

‘Hm?’

The newly discussed topic was how items that had not appeared before were beginning to drop as field levels increased.

Apparently, there was even a very small chance for ordinary mobs to drop Skill Coins.

-This makes me think drop rates go up as field level rises.

-Who leaked this? More people will flock here now. We were supposed to keep quiet about it.

ㄴThey were already flocking here even without this.

ㄴYeah. The other fields are awkward for hunting. There are no proper camps where you can rest.

ㄴI just want to sleep properly. If I join a party, I can sleep, right?

ㄴIf they’re people you can trust. Otherwise, you’ll wake up naked.

ㄴAnd with five fewer inventory slots.

Changes in the Rabbit Field.

It had been mentioned here and there before, but someone seemed to have uploaded a video and confirmed it beyond doubt.

‘Even if the drop rate is low, something is bound to appear if hundreds of people keep hunting.’

Would the variety and quantity of Skills listed on the marketplace increase too?

As someone who bought Skills with money, that was welcome news.

Still, he had no desire to go over there.

This field felt like home now, and the Nemesis effect was making Wolves easier and easier to deal with.

‘Even when they hit me now, it hurts less than before.’

As Vulcan’s level increased, it was gradually pulling its weight in battle.

Sharing the effects of Slaughter Record created additional synergy as well.

‘It feels like an opening might finally be coming into view.’

His confidence was growing.

Maybe he could challenge the boss now.

But the Nemesis effect from Slaughter Record only applied to Wolves.

It did not apply to Tigers.

Still, if his level rose further, if he gained useful Skills, and if he gained more subordinates like Companion No. 1, he did not think it would be impossible.

‘The Rabbit Field boss had to be taken down as a group, but that was because the people there were low-level.’

Of course, he was not overestimating himself.

That was why he still did not approach the area where Tigers appeared.

But he was thinking it might be all right to visit other places soon.

Namely, the riverbank where the Crocodiles lived.

‘I need to check whether what I have in mind will really work. The timing’s a little iffy today, so should I go tomorrow?’

That day’s hunting had been satisfying.

Before returning to the hollow in the waterfall cliff, he was also glad to get an item for the first time in a while during the final hunt.

[Crude Beast Collar]

When he first got one, he had thought it was a fairly common item.

Apparently, that was not the case.

People talked about it on the message board, but none were listed on the marketplace.

‘There are items for taming rabbits and things like that, but I don’t really need one.’

Tamed Rabbits did not help in battle or with chores.

If their owners brought them food, all they did was eat and poop.

Still, they looked cute.

They could eat almost any grass, so people said feeding them was not much of a burden. Yet he wondered whether raising a pet was the right choice in a world where death could come at any time.

‘No. Maybe it’s the opposite.’

Perhaps a world like this was exactly why people needed something to grow attached to.

He nodded and decided that when he tamed the next Wolf, he would quickly feed it experience and evolve it first.

‘Companion No. 1 will probably like having a subordinate.’

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