WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 2

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Combat boots he had worn for the first time in a while.

A protective suit still stiff, and a stab-resistant vest.

A backpack as heavy as a full combat load, packed with all kinds of things, enough to make it feel reassuring despite the weight.

Everything he had prepared just in case.

It was all meaningless.

An empty space.

Seo Hajin looked at himself there.

Naked.

Not a single thread on him.

“This must be why they say not to trust the internet.”

Then again, there had been no advance party, no one who had experienced this first. Everyone had just been throwing out guesses and theories.

Starting with those who claimed they had seen a “status window” themselves, all kinds of people had chimed in to come up with every possible scenario.

It had felt wrong to sit still, so he had bought a utility knife and other things that might help him survive.

‘Well. Can’t be helped.’

He was not the type to dwell on what had already happened.

Seo Hajin looked at the window that suddenly appeared before him in the pure white space.

[Set your avatar]

It had not appeared in those words at first.

A strange string of symbols resembling pictographs from an ancient civilization had appeared, then smoothly shifted into Korean.

The change had been so fast it was almost instantaneous, but he had not missed it.

“An avatar?”

He understood what it meant right away.

The next window made it obvious.

“Is this a game?”

It looked like a character creation screen.

A naked male figure stood in the center, looking exactly like him.

“I can fine-tune it?”

He could leave it as it was or change his appearance however he wanted.

“Of course I should customize it.”

He did not dislike games.

If anything, he liked them.

His skill at them was another matter.

“Hmm.”

He had no idea where he would be going.

Still, he did not want to keep his current appearance.

It was not self-deprecation. His slightly below-average height and proportionally short limbs seemed disadvantageous for survival.

‘No.’

Perhaps the opposite was true.

A smaller, more agile body might be better.

After a brief moment of thought, he shook his head.

“How am I supposed to resist making a barbarian?”

The settings were not difficult.

He stretched and shrank the default model, adjusting individual parts.

He considered making himself bald because he did not know what hygiene would be like, then canceled it. If his hair never grew back, he might regret it later.

“Not bald, just shaved... No. A mohawk will do.”

His hair was dark crimson.

Both sides were shaved, leaving a single upright ridge down the middle.

His face was fierce enough to match, though not ugly. It simply gave anyone who saw him the impression of a barbarian warrior.

He wanted to make himself as tall as possible, but increasing his height meant he could not increase his width.

“So I need to reduce my height if I want more muscle.”

He did not know much about it, but perhaps he could build muscle later. Height, on the other hand, would likely be fixed.

“No. If this is a game system, there might be a way to get taller too.”

After another long stretch of deliberation, he settled on exactly two meters in height and a somewhat sturdier build.

Maybe because he had adjusted his head size to match his height, he looked more like a somewhat bulky model than a warrior.

That was only from a distance, though. Up close, the impression would surely be different.

“I made my hands and feet big too... Six fingers aren’t possible. I was curious about that.”

After checking the detailed settings, he belatedly discovered there were more options.

“I can set my internal organs too?”

He could even add or remove specific organs.

“Adding them makes sense, but removing them? ...Ah. I can remove my appendix in advance.”

What if this was a place where surgery was impossible? If so, getting rid of potential problems beforehand was not a bad idea.

It also said that adding a specific organ required reducing one of his original organs.

“So if I remove my appendix, I can add another organ. ...What would happen if I had two hearts?”

Athletes with great stamina were often said to have “two hearts.” What would it feel like if he truly had them?

“If one heart fails, I might not die if I have a backup heart.”

But the human body could not be that simple. The two hearts might not work together properly.

‘Ah. It shows whether it’s possible.’

There was an indicator that told him whether his body would remain stable after the changes, as if to ease his concerns.

Two hearts were apparently questionable.

Adding another lung, on the other hand, seemed quite beneficial.

Adding another kidney looked useful too.

The same went for his pancreas.

“There are so many things I want to add, but no organs left to remove.”

The only organs he could remove without dying were his appendix and one of his two kidneys. But reducing his kidneys when he wanted to add another would be a problem.

“I’ll remove the appendix first... Ah. I can reduce my intestines a little too. But shouldn’t I leave those alone?”

Watching the “predicted results” on the Status Window, he tried adjusting this and that before deciding to slightly shorten both his small and large intestines.

“Ten percent should be okay.”

The expected result was reduced absorption of nutrients and water, but it said he could compensate by eating more.

“There’ll be food, right?”

Surely this was not a place with nothing to eat.

He did not know much, but whoever had done this probably had not done it just to starve people to death.

The benefits he gained from reducing his intestines were considerable.

His pancreas was enhanced nearly fivefold, and his liver became larger than before.

He could not give himself two hearts, but he could make his single heart significantly stronger.

“Should I reduce them a little more?”

The system said that reducing his large and small intestines by up to twenty percent would not cause serious problems, but he could not know what would really happen, so he was cautious.

Still, with them already reduced by ten percent, he wanted to make a few more adjustments in order to enhance his kidneys and stomach, which he had not touched yet.

In the end, he reduced each by another three percent and enhanced his kidneys and stomach in return.

“My digestion is much better.”

It was not just the effect of his stomach. His strengthened pancreas, liver, and other organs worked together to produce that result.

Of course, it was only a system display for now.

Seo Hajin stared at it for a moment, repeatedly switching between it and the earlier settings window before stopping at one option.

“Eyes... I can enhance those too.”

Eyes were clearly important.

Being able to see farther would help him survive.

But his eyesight was not bad.

Both eyes were currently around 1.5.

“Hmm. I don’t think I should shorten my intestines any further.”

He wanted to experience Mongolian-level eyesight, but the cost seemed too high.

Besides, considering his unique ability, he already had a way to see far away without relying on both eyes.

“I can’t see clearly, but seeing far isn’t a problem.”

He checked again and again for anything else to adjust, but nothing else caught his attention.

There were things he regretted, but every choice was a compromise.

He nodded and saved his finished character information to the system.

“Hmm?”

He tilted his head.

He had thought something would begin immediately, but he had only saved a single character.

“Ah. I can set multiple avatars.”

It seemed that once he chose one, though, he could not choose the others.

Perhaps it was the system’s way of telling him to think as carefully as possible before creating an avatar.

“A different concept... If I make one, I’ll just have to agonize over which one to choose again.”

He had already thought hard enough to reach this result.

Shaking his head, he decided on his current avatar without opening another settings window.

[Would you like to apply this avatar?]

[This decision cannot be reversed]

“That’s a little scary.”

After a short, deep breath, he tapped the confirmation button.

[You have chosen your avatar]

[Please give it a name]

This did not take much thought.

He entered the first thing that came to mind.

“Juggernaut.”

[Entering as avatar ‘Juggernaut’]

* * *

Getting used to his new body was not difficult.

It was completely different from his original body, but the sense of unfamiliarity eased when he looked down from above.

Unique Ability: Multiple.

That was what the system had named it.

Seo Hajin looked down at his new body with that ability, then turned his view to scan his surroundings.

A thick forest.

A small clearing on one side, where sunlight filtered through.

Nothing but dense forest filled the area, and ominous movement could be felt throughout it.

Trees and bushes were actually moving unnaturally. Something was wandering through them.

Then some of them, the ones closer to him, changed direction.

‘They’re coming this way?’

Even the closest ones were dozens of meters away.

But as he kept watching, it looked like everything within nearly a hundred meters had begun moving toward him.

‘Whatever they are, this doesn’t seem good.’

At least he had not started here naked and empty-handed.

He wore a medieval-style cloth outfit that offered next to no protection.

It was a tunic, a single garment open at the bottom and cinched at the waist with a rope.

He also held a wooden club from the beginning. It was heavy enough to put an ordinary person in the grave with one blow.

“......”

Why was he in this situation?

What exactly was this?

He did not complain about things like that.

A barbarian warrior named Juggernaut.

He looked straight ahead through the avatar’s eyes while simultaneously surveying every direction through Seo Hajin’s eyes in the sky. Then he adjusted his grip on the wooden club.

Rustle.

Crack.

Rustle, rustle.

Movement and sounds approached from afar.

Looking more closely, he noticed a pattern.

‘There’s more than one.’

Around five locations.

At least two creatures were moving in each.

That made roughly ten to fifteen creatures in total.

He did not know whether they were beasts or humanoid monsters.

They might even be humans.

Locals, perhaps. Or people from Earth who had been transported here like him.

‘Probably not.’

He dismissed the possibility that they were Earthlings. The way they had pinpointed his location and approached as though encircling him did not seem human.

‘The locals might move differently.’

He soon dismissed that possibility as well.

One of the movements had drawn close enough.

He did not miss the brief glimpse through the bushes.

“A wolf right from the start?”

A quiet complaint.

In a normal game, did you not start with rabbits? Or, if there had to be monsters, something like goblins?

‘And there are way too many of them for the beginning.’

He had no time to keep complaining.

For some reason, they had not joined into one pack, but that did not make the situation any better.

‘They aren’t getting very close yet.’

They stopped at around twenty meters away, waiting there or circling to the sides.

He immediately recognized the movement as them sizing up their prey before a hunt.

The separate groups gathering nearby did not fight or even challenge one another.

‘Here they come.’

Then, at one moment, a group of three suddenly closed the distance.

Twenty meters vanished in an instant.

One came straight at him while the other two, just as they had from afar, circled around to target his back.

They moved naturally, like experienced hunters and a team that had worked together for a long time, without needing to communicate.

It was an extremely dangerous situation.

Seo Hajin silently adjusted his grip on the club. He did not cower or step back.

He watched the wolf approaching from the front while looking down from about thirty meters in the air at the same time.

The wolves taking his rear did not mean they had left his sight.

Thinking about it again, he realized just how incredible his unique ability was.

‘That doesn’t mean I’m completely safe.’

Nothing had changed.

Seeing the wolf suddenly rush at him after apparently judging the situation, he moved sideways as if he had expected it.

At the same time, he swung the club without hesitation.

The roughly one-meter-long weapon, like an oversized baseball bat, cut through the air and smashed into the crown of the wolf as it was about to rake through empty air.

Thud!

A dull impact.

A heavy recoil in his grip.

The club bounced slightly from the force.

Using that momentum, he spun to the side and swung horizontally at the muzzle of another wolf charging in.

‘So far, I’ve confirmed two attack patterns. Front-paw slashes and biting.’

He had not been hit.

His own attacks had not landed perfectly either, but they had caused damage.

Yelp!

Grrr.

The wolf that had leaped in from the side with its jaws open was more badly hurt than the one he had struck at the crown.

Setting aside the fact that he had failed to hit its head properly and struck somewhere behind it instead, its hide seemed thicker than expected.

‘I need to swing harder.’

He had been holding back his strength to some degree.

He had to. He had not fully adjusted to this new body yet.

He also needed to check the durability of the wooden club in his hands. If it broke, he would have to face this pack of wolves bare-handed.

‘Hmm.’

He hurriedly scanned the area.

If that happened, a fist-sized rock would be better than his bare fists.

Fortunately, the club was more durable than he expected.

They attacked and he dodged, and he managed to strike another blow. Even after hitting a hard skull properly, the club did not crack.

Grrk.

One wolf, its head dented on one side from the blow, staggered away before collapsing and panting.

If he had a gun, he would make sure it was dead. There was no time for that now.

He was busy dealing with the two remaining wolves, and he also had to keep track of the other packs surrounding him from every direction.

‘There wasn’t a difficulty setting, was there?’

Only now did he think of it.

Had there been one before entry that he had missed? Had he started on a higher difficulty?

But no matter how much he thought about it, there had been nothing like that.

All he had learned during the entry process was where this place was.

[Tower Floor One Area]

It was not even a proper place name, just a display like that.

And a tower? There was a perfectly normal sky above, with clouds floating through it.

Thud!

Another wolf fell.

Then another.

He had barely brought down one group, but he felt more overwhelmed than pleased.

‘I can hunt them, at least. But my body isn’t unharmed either.’

While fighting three wolves, he had gained scratches all over his body. Blood ran from claw marks here and there.

Fortunately, he had not been bitten.

The scratches had only torn his skin. His muscles were untouched.

That was because he had tracked their movements from above.

Without an accurate sense of their positions and distances, he would not have been able to respond properly.

Right. These were minimal losses.

Still, he knew even injuries like these could become dangerous if they piled up.

‘Besides...’

More than ten wolves still surrounded him from a distance.

Thinking of that, Seo Hajin walked toward the three wolves that had fallen but still clung to life.

Crack! Crack!

He brought down the club without hesitation.

One by one, he ended their lives.

It was a kind of display for the wolves around him, and he could not deny he hoped some might run away after seeing it.

Not one did.

He did gain something else, though.

The dead wolves vanished, dropping items onto the ground.

Footnotes:

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