WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

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

Chapter 23

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[What the hell is Juggernaut?]

[Has anyone been to the northern forest?]

[Juggernaut, please reply if you're here.]

The message board was noisy.

People had gradually started mentioning his name more often, but it had become especially bad since the rainy season began. Recently, it had gotten much worse.

The listings on the marketplace were the main reason.

No matter how much Wolf Meat people bought, the supply never seemed to shrink. The price was also getting cheaper by the day, enough for people to suspect someone was actually duplicating items.

And there was more than just meat. Wolf byproducts included hides, tendons for bowstrings and tough cords, bones from various parts, and even some organs.

Someone said there would probably be even more listings if there were no limit on an individual's selling slots.

Each slot could hold up to a hundred items. Whenever one emptied, another listing with a full hundred items appeared soon after.

[Is Juggernaut a Golden Goblin?]

What are the villains doing?

- Didn't you see that they got wiped out when they went before?

ㄴ They did?

ㄴ Nine went and all of them died. (Link) The post is still there.

[A team went north recently too.]

But apparently they saw something on the way and immediately turned back.

- What did they see?

ㄴ Dunno, they wouldn't tell me. I only heard they followed the waterway.

[Don't go to the northern forest.]

Forget Juggernaut, you guys would get stopped by the Wolves. Just quietly hunt rabbits.

- True. Go for no reason and you'll lose everything you've got.

ㄴ You're the guy who said he got cleaned out last time.

ㄴ Yeah, and Juggernaut isn't alone.

ㄴ Fr?

ㄴ It was a team. At least two people.

There was no anonymous board in the community.

In the beginning, people had tried to protect their reputations. Now, villains and everyone else openly posted whatever they wanted.

Honestly, it was hard to find someone who was not a villain at this point. Even when someone found another person's Personal Effects, almost nobody tried to return them to their owner.

Of course, finding and using Personal Effects could not be treated the same as murder. But given the opportunity and circumstances, anyone could hurt someone else.

Those who had already adjusted to life and survival here had become equally numb to killing things. Age and gender had nothing to do with it.

[I saw Juggernaut.]

Then someone made a post.

They had even attached a video, which caused another uproar.

- Holy shit.

- What's he doing? Luring them?

- He's not luring them to kill them, though.

- Someone said it looked like he was teleporting before. He really is.

- He's luring them over and throwing them at the Crocodiles, right?

- So it really was a team. I can see one guy pulling mobs and another collecting items. But why isn't the item collector drawing aggro?

ㄴ Yeah, that's weird. Is there an item that prevents aggro or something?

The rain had weakened somewhat.

The video had been filmed from across the river, looking toward its swollen banks in the distance.

Blood pooled thickly on the ground before flowing into the river with the rainwater. Dozens of Wolves rushed in without pause, mixing with the Crocodiles.

A figure used what seemed to be a teleportation-type Skill to throw the mobs over, then vanished.

Amid the chaos, a slender man lightly ran around, picking up the scattered items.

- What's he wearing?

ㄴ Looks like crocodile leather.

ㄴ Did he make it from stuff he got there?

ㄴ Think it's waterproof?

ㄴ Looks like it.

ㄴ Wow, he's been farming easy rewards. I'm going too.

ㄴ So we just follow the waterway upstream?

Many people reacted similarly.

They said they would go as well. They did not have teleportation-type Skills, but even if they could not lure mobs, would it not still be worth it to pick up a few dropped items?

[Do these idiots have no brains?]

Do you think that just happens?

- Leave them. People only see as much as they know.

ㄴ Exactly. The more I watch it, the scarier it gets.

ㄴ Lol, Juggernaut's inventory is about to get even bigger.

- Juggernaut is at least Level 8.

ㄴ What do you mean 8? He's probably hit 10.

ㄴ Isn't 10 a bit much?

ㄴ He's probably over 9. Assuming he gets the experience from everything dying in that lure, it's definitely possible.

ㄴ Does he get that?

ㄴ Based on what people at the rocky mountain cliff said before, it seems possible. They said an eagle dropped a mob while they were nearby and almost hit them, but when it died close by, they got experience and Points.

ㄴ Fr?

ㄴ It's a pretty well-known story.

ㄴ Even when we hunt rabbits, nearby people get a little share too. You didn't know?

ㄴ Yeah, I'm a solo player in Bear Field.

ㄴ How do you solo in Bear Field?

ㄴ They said they’re a lumberjack.

ㄴ Oh.

As it became accepted fact that Juggernaut had been monopolizing easy rewards, more and more people seriously began planning expeditions there.

Nobody intended to go alone.

Makeshift parties and even clans began preparing to head there.

The Wolf Forest was a field where it was difficult to last long, but the video seemed to offer a solution.

- The guy who uploaded this is gonna get killed by Juggernaut.

ㄴ Fr lol.

ㄴ There goes the gravy train, huh?

ㄴ I respect the nerve of not deleting it.

At that same time, Seo Hajin saw the post as well.

“Got found out earlier than I expected.”

The rain had weakened, after all.

He had expected people to start moving again, but not for them to come all the way to where he was.

He had known someone was across the river because he had seen them from above. He had not known they were filming.

He had no intention of retaliating.

He had always known that a hidden source of easy rewards would not last forever.

‘I'll call it a day soon.’

He was tired already.

He had learned that mob-luring hunts required much more focus on days when the rain was lighter.

‘Hm. Maybe I should come take a look later.’

If everyone really came flooding in and tried to lure mobs the same way, the reason he had needed to be cautious would soon come for them.

‘The Wolves aren't the truly scary thing in this forest.’

As he returned to his shelter, he hoped the people who came would achieve something worthwhile.

‘They need money to buy hides and meat. I've noticed everyone's getting poorer these days.’

Even if someone put something up for sale, people needed Points to buy it. Hunting itself had become difficult, so nobody had much to spare.

If they got results from mob-luring hunts, it would ease that situation as well. It was unfortunate to lose his easy source of income, but he could always find another one.

‘And I don't think I need to keep luring them anymore.’

He was confident he could return to his old methods and still achieve similar efficiency.

‘The Nemesis effect is really scary.’

Still, considering how difficult it had been to build it up one monster at a time at first, it was not strange for the pace to increase later on.

‘Come to think of it, Damage Taken Reduction from the Nemesis effect passed 100 percent a long time ago, but I still take damage when I get hit.’

At first, he had thought reaching 100 percent would mean taking no damage. That was not the case.

The value had even continued rising beyond that, yet he was still being hurt.

‘There must be other hidden values, right? Maybe Defense is calculated too.’

Since Wolves had levels as well, higher-level Wolves would deal more damage. Damage Taken Reduction most likely reduced the final damage after various calculations.

One thing was certain. The higher the value rose, the less damage he took when struck.

And if it kept rising like this, there was a chance he would eventually take no damage at all.

‘Maybe things will be different if the field level rises, but if there isn't a limit to how much the Nemesis effect can increase, it's possible.’

Then he could really walk around on auto-hunt without caring whether anything attacked him.

In truth, that was already possible to some extent. He could ignore minor attacks and fight with a purely offensive approach.

‘If I'm willing to take some hits, I can pummel them more effectively. Hunting will go faster.’

That was why he no longer needed to cling to mob-luring hunts.

He had already earned plenty, but now he could get similar results without needing to lure mobs together and let them die.

‘I can't kill Crocodiles at the same time, but against Wolves alone, I might even save the time spent luring them.’

He confirmed that while returning to the waterfall.

Wolves gathered from all directions, regardless of the rain.

They died almost as quickly as they charged at him. Even the ones that ran away and returned with stronger Wolves met the same end.

He did not need to use teleportation through Subspace anymore.

He was very different from the person who had arrived here on the first day, wearing rags and carrying a single club.

‘Come to think of it, don't the other users lack the Nemesis effect?’

If they possessed the [Slaughter Record] Skill, they would gain it. Otherwise, Wolves would not die as easily for them as they did for him.

As that thought occurred to him belatedly, he realized their mob-luring hunts might look rather different from what they had expected after watching the video.

* * *

The following afternoon, someone uploaded another video to the message board.

Many people already knew that quite a few had headed into the northern forest and traveled upstream along the waterway.

There had only been scattered comments, however. No detailed updates had come from them.

The video made it possible to roughly understand what had happened.

- What is this? The Wolves aren't dying easily.

ㄴ Fr.

- Aren't the Crocodiles dying too fast?

ㄴ Isn't that better?

ㄴ No, the Wolves die because of the Crocodiles.

ㄴ Yeah, the lure keeps getting cut off.

- This is edited footage, right? Things had to be worse than this.

ㄴ You can see the cuts here and there.

- Their hunting efficiency must've been terrible.

ㄴ Considering how many people there were, it probably was bad.

ㄴ Only a few people are pulling mobs, while dozens are freeloading beside them lol.

Some were suspicious, some mocked them, and some were interested.

- Mob-luring hunts themselves still seem worthwhile.

ㄴ That's true. If you do it well, it should be pretty profitable.

- You were supposed to lure mobs, why did you just lure a bunch of people?

ㄴ But they did lure them, didn't they?

Whatever their reactions, everyone came to a similar conclusion.

The later expedition parties achieved much less than Juggernaut had during the mob-luring hunt in the first video.

Then someone posted a hypothesis that partially answered their questions.

[There's a Skill called Slaughter Record.]

I don't want to write out the detailed description, but it gives you advantages against a specific mob the more you hunt it.

- Advantages? What kind?

ㄴ You hit harder and getting hit hurts less.

ㄴ Ah, that would explain it.

- Does that apply to mob-luring hunts too? He isn't directly hitting or being hit.

ㄴ We'd need to check that.

[He's probably a Slaughter Record holder.]

There was someone with it in Rabbit Field too. Rabbits died really fast whenever other people hunted near the holder.

- Even if they weren't the one doing it?

ㄴ Yeah, it applied in an area. People quietly gave preference to the holders.

ㄴ First I've heard of it.

ㄴ Of course they kept quiet. They wanted to keep farming easy rewards.

ㄴ Wow, there was an easy-money spot in Rabbit Field too.

ㄴ Calling rabbits an easy-money spot lol.

ㄴ Fr, you need at least Wolves for that.

“So the Nemesis effect applies in an area.”

Seo Hajin was glad to learn something he had not known, but it did not mean much to him.

“I already bound it, so it's a Passive Skill now.”

Still, if he ever hunted in a party with others, it seemed worth keeping in mind.

“I wonder if anyone would come all the way here to ask to party up. Aside from villains coming after me, I don't think anyone would.”

He was above the waterfall cliff.

This was much farther upstream than the lower reaches where he had performed mob-luring hunts. Wolves here seemed to be higher level than those below, and they were more aggressive and nimble.

The current continued here as well, but Crocodiles did not live in this area.

That meant mob-luring hunts like the ones downstream were impossible, but as he had thought before, they no longer mattered much.

Thud! Thud!

Boom!

A viewpoint looked down from the sky.

Below, dozens of Wolves surrounded Juggernaut and Vulcan from every direction.

But it was not a siege.

The two warriors moved without issue, killing the charging Wolves one by one as they went.

They were moving even though the mobs came to them on their own because they did not want to leave any downtime while waiting for dead mobs to respawn.

By hunting while moving, they could kill mobs elsewhere before the ones in the previous area respawned.

If they moved in a wide circle, they could continue hunting without stopping.

Of course, they had to restore their health and eat from time to time, but compared to before, it was nearly endless hunting.

Meals did not take long either. He only needed to enter Subspace briefly, drink a shake, and come back out.

“Nice. It's close to the cave too.”

A shorter distance between the hunting ground and shelter meant he could hunt longer.

It still felt slightly less efficient than mob-luring hunts, but because he could hunt for longer, the results were actually better.

Once he had more breathing room, he occasionally sent Companion No. 1 and Black into battle as well.

Experience would be distributed to them anyway, so their levels would rise on their own. Still, he thought their combat ability would improve only through direct experience.

After testing it, Black's direct combat ability was clearly inferior to Companion No. 1's.

Evolution accounted for some of it, but the same had been true even before Companion No. 1 evolved.

‘She's decent against one opponent, but this place is always a dogpile.’

A Black Leopard's specialties were stealth and ambush.

Fighting while openly exposed was a handicap for her. The fact that she was performing this well was worthy of praise.

‘Once she evolves, she'll be able to pull her weight.’

If not, he had not intended to keep raising her. But after watching her, he thought she was worth investing a Key in.

“Looks like the rain might stop soon.”

After hunting for two more days, the atmosphere downstream, where the mob-luring hunts had been happening, seemed quite different from before.

Quite a few who had arrived with nothing but enthusiasm had left. Only those who had found ways to improve their hunting efficiency remained.

In particular, parties centered around people who likely possessed [Slaughter Record] continued the mob-luring hunts. Their results would probably improve over time.

But the Area Boss, quiet for some time, shattered that atmosphere with a sudden incursion.

‘Ah.’

Just from the titles of the posts appearing on the message board, he could tell something had happened there.

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