WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 29

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Thoom!

Thud! Thoom!

The first blow made it tremble. It tried to pull free after the second, but failed.

Only after the third and fourth crushing blows did the Tiger finally wrench itself out, the middle of its head deeply caved in.

“Now there’s only one slot left.”

“It’s only a triple stack, and it’s still a pain.”

“I would’ve gotten wrecked if I’d come alone.”

The three humans each said their piece.

The Tiger could no longer roar in fury. Its tail hung low now, and bloody foam mixed with its ragged growls.

But running was no longer an option.

Its body trembled with fear and rage. Even with one side of its skull caved in and its steps unsteady, it continued attacking until the end.

Then it collapsed.

The Tiger did not know it, but the humans could see the health bar above its head.

It was nearly empty, wavering as though it would hit zero at any moment. One or two more hits would finish it.

But they had not surrounded it from three directions to taunt it.

“We really caught it.”

Juggernaut spoke.

Of course, he had no intention of chanting some magical spell that would revive an enemy. He had simply remembered something in his inventory now that they had actually reached this point.

‘I thought I might try it if I got the chance.’

What he took out next was a taming item.

[Beast Necklace]

It looked similar to the ones he had used to tame Companion No. 1 and Black, but it was thicker and sturdier overall.

Even the name was different. The “Rudimentary” modifier was gone, which likely meant it was a higher-grade item.

That was why he had considered it. Maybe this could tame a Tiger too.

‘I tamed a Black Leopard with something I got from a Wolf. A Tiger shouldn’t be any different.’

The problem was that this was a boss monster.

Still, he would not know unless he tried.

[Attempting to tame the target.]

[The target may resist. Strong resistance may cause taming to fail.]

[If taming fails, another attempt can be made after 1 minute.]

‘It works.’

The Tiger twitched.

For a moment, blood returned to its fading eyes. But it could not resist. It was already dying and had no strength left for it.

“Hmm.”

That did not mean it accepted easily.

It seemed like it might die like this.

“It would be nice to have a Tiger too.”

He wasn’t disappointed.

Even if taming failed, the item would not disappear. Besides, he would keep hunting bosses in the future, so he could try again then.

“Hmm?”

That was when he noticed the slight weight in his hand had decreased.

The item was gone.

[You have successfully tamed the target.]

“It worked?”

The taming item was not the only thing that had vanished.

The Tiger before him had disappeared too.

“Ah.”

It seemed the Tiger had died right after the taming succeeded. Since it was dead, it had gone into his inventory for now.

“Does it work as long as it’s before death?”

He did not know exactly how it worked.

If success was guaranteed when a target was about to die, he could make similar attempts in the future.

‘I don’t have any more taming items, but one will probably drop if I keep hunting.’

Or perhaps the Tiger had accepted it right before dying. He could ask once it recovered.

“Ah. Keys.”

The problem was that he did not have enough Keys to evolve it.

But he soon realized he did not need to worry.

[Field Boss Hunt Successful.]

The message appeared belatedly.

Various items burst onto the ground afterward. Without even checking what they were, he quickly gathered them all.

‘A system-wide notification will appear.’

Once people learned the Tiger had been killed, many would cross over here to take advantage of the opening.

‘The boss monster won’t respawn for twenty-four hours.’

For the next twenty-four hours, at least, there would be no threat from the Tiger.

Which meant he could freely herd and hunt monsters.

‘Users who hadn’t come here before will probably swarm in too.’

He did not want to get caught up in anything noisy or troublesome. He hurried back to the waterfall.

He could have gone hunting in the forest farther upstream, but he wanted to rest today.

‘I need to sort things out too.’

It seemed like more had dropped than he expected. If there had only been a few items, he would not have swept them all into Subspace.

‘There seemed to be several of the same thing.’

The cave had extended quite far inward by now.

The Avatars went inside, each finding a place to sit or lie down and rest.

Meanwhile, Hajin watched the surroundings from the air as he moved the Avatars and organized the things in Subspace.

“Wow.”

He hadn’t been mistaken.

A lot of something had dropped. They were Key Fragments.

“Is it because I took it all for myself?”

Maybe bosses had a base amount of rewards. If several people killed one, perhaps that amount was divided among them.

‘Otherwise, this number makes no sense.’

They were fragments, so he had to combine them into complete items, but even then he had made more than ten Keys.

‘This is more than enough to evolve the Tiger.’

He could also unlock Stone, who was still capped at level 10.

Or he could unlock Vulcan’s level 20 cap.

‘I’m just a little short of doing both.’

He decided that evolving the Tiger was a given. That only required one Key.

Then he decided to unlock Stone with the remaining Keys.

‘If I unlock Vulcan here, Stone will fall too far behind alone.’

If one character fell too far behind in hunting, it could hold the others back. It was better to keep everyone progressing evenly.

‘Other than that... these must be the Item Boxes.’

The boxes supposedly dropped by boss monsters.

He had received three of them, boxes that could contain items unsuitable for the Area.

‘It seems like they give experience too, but there’s no gauge, so I don’t know the exact amount. As for Points, maybe around three thousand? Wolves died along the way too, so it’s hard to tell. Maybe two thousand.’

In the end, he concluded that hunting boss monsters for Points or experience was inefficient.

Still, some things, including Keys, could only be acquired from boss monsters. There was nothing he could do about that.

“Still... we caught it.”

He had done it alone.

No, strictly speaking, he was not alone. He had three Avatars and his subordinates helping him.

But the system seemed to have treated it as though he had taken all the rewards for himself. Or perhaps it did not distinguish such things in the first place.

‘Either way, I got everything.’

He immediately unlocked Stone.

Then, just as when he had unlocked Vulcan, he felt one of his Unique Abilities strengthen on its own.

“Huh?”

But it felt different from before.

Seo Hajin was reminded that Multiple Viewpoints was not his only Unique Ability.

“This gets stronger too?”

[Unique Ability: Soul Resonance]

It had strengthened as well.

There was no indication in the system, but he could tell immediately from the difference in power each Avatar felt.

‘And I gained another tamed monster.’

It was a Field Boss, no less.

Some of its abilities were evenly shared again. Likely its great strength, tough hide, agile movements, and so on.

‘I understand why taming items rarely drop. If you could become stronger like this, the balance would obviously fall apart.’

Of course, taming a boss monster would not normally be easy.

He had gotten the opportunity because he had taken it all for himself. But if a random group of users with no friendship or camaraderie had gathered, he would not even have been able to try.

‘Hmm.’

The Tiger had currently been given a kind of waiting period to recover from its Exhaustion state.

About a day remained.

It seemed he could not take it out of his inventory and use it before then.

‘Dying comes with a handicap, then.’

It would have to wait a day.

As he considered how he could not simply make it charge headfirst into things, he confirmed that he could still give it experience and level it up in that state.

‘I don’t have spare experience right now. I should go out tonight.’

Even if users from other fields crossed over, they would likely return around sunset. Even if they did not, they probably would not enter deep into the forest.

‘Hmm.’

Since he thought of it, he checked the message board. As expected, it had become incredibly noisy.

The Northern Forest boss being killed was very different from the Rabbit Field boss being killed.

‘There has never even been a raid party formed. That’s what everyone’s talking about.’

Some wondered whether someone had taken it down alone.

That idea seemed mostly dismissed, while the prevailing theory was that a small group of strong users had moved quietly.

But more than who had killed the boss, or how many people had done it, everyone seemed interested in what the boss had dropped.

‘I don’t really want to brag about it.’

Seo Hajin had no intention of directly telling anyone that he had killed the boss.

Someone mentioned Juggernaut, his nickname, but he did not reply to those posts or comments.

“What did we get?”

There were three boxes from the boss.

And there were three Avatars.

‘Did three drop because of that?’

If not, it was an amusing coincidence.

Juggernaut, Vulcan, and Stone each took out one box.

When they opened the boxes simultaneously in three places, the boxes vanished in bright light, leaving only items behind.

“Hmm.”

First, in front of Juggernaut was a mechanical device about the size of two stacked fists.

It looked somewhat crude but sturdy. It had several buttons, though he could not guess what they were for.

Fortunately, the system explained it.

[Wearable Blood Purification Device]

The short name was followed by symbols and numbers that appeared to be a product number.

‘Blood purification?’

Was it like Detoxification?

He tilted his head and read the detailed explanation, learning that it was similar to what he had thought, but slightly different.

‘It’s a dialysis machine.’

Apparently, when attached to an arm or leg, it automatically found a blood vessel, connected to it, and continuously purified the blood.

“It doesn’t need batteries?”

Its operating energy came from the target’s body temperature and the warmth of their blood.

He was not sure how that could be enough, but if the system said so, then so be it.

“It’s not especially useful.”

It would be incredibly useful if his kidneys had failed, but he was not in that situation.

“I’ll keep it for now.”

The dialysis machines used in hospitals, or portable dialysis devices, had seemed much larger than this.

‘It’s this small and fairly light. It even seems possible to wear while moving around.’

If he returned home, he might be able to sell it for quite a high price.

He carefully placed it on an empty shelf in Subspace.

“This one is more useful than a dialysis machine.”

Next, he looked at the object in Vulcan’s hand.

The finger-thick rod, roughly twenty centimeters long, was called a Laser Cutter.

“This doesn’t seem to be from Earth either.”

After checking how it worked, he pressed it against a nearby wall and scraped it along the surface.

A fairly deep groove appeared in the hard stone.

“If it can do this to stone, it should be able to cut metal well enough.”

It could not slice through things as easily as tofu, but if handled slowly, it seemed capable of making clean cuts.

Of course, it could also be used as a weapon.

If it could gouge stone this deeply, it would tear through human skin without difficulty.

“With this much power, where does it get its energy... Ah. Is this it?”

Unlike the blood purification device, it had separate batteries.

When he opened the cap at the bottom, there were two batteries inside, similar to AAA batteries.

What interested him was that they were Mana Batteries. What interested him even more was the separate charging method.

“If I press this button, it doesn’t fire the laser, it enters charging mode. Then... Ow, ow, ow.”

Having nowhere else to test it, he pressed it against his forearm.

A heavy pain struck him, and he felt his health drop sharply.

“It charges by draining the target’s health... Is there mana inside health? I don’t understand the principle.”

In any case, it said any living target would work. He decided to test it on animals or plants if the opportunity arose.

“The farther away it is, the weaker it gets. It might be awkward for combat.”

He would need to use it from very close range, making it suitable for ambushes or assassinations.

Or perhaps it was better to use it for industrial work or crafting.

He stored that on a shelf in Subspace as well, then finally checked Stone’s hand.

His brow furrowed.

“Nanobots?”

[Nanobot Stimpack]

It resembled the atropine injectors he had seen in the military, or the insulin injectors used by diabetic patients.

Its surface was made of metal, and it felt sturdy enough that it would not break even if thrown against the ground.

‘Does it contain nanobots?’

According to the explanation, they were single-use nanobots.

Once injected, they moved through the bloodstream, repaired injuries inside the body, and were consumed in the process.

‘Want self-replication? Sign up for our subscription service? This doesn’t sound like a system message.’

He had been right.

The system had only translated the product manual for him.

He did not know where it had been made, but perhaps subscribing to the service would allow nanobots to continue being made inside the body.

“...”

Nanobots.

He understood the concept, but it was absurd to see something that had only appeared in dramas or novels as a prototype.

‘It can’t be fake.’

He had no immediate need for it.

He was not injured, and even if he was, his recovery speed was fairly fast.

Still, as he held it, his thoughts went elsewhere.

Not to his current Avatars, but to Seo Hajin’s original body.

‘I was a cancer patient.’

Could this help with cancer too?

Could it remove the tumor inside him? His condition was already so advanced that it might be too late.

‘Probably not.’

Even if it truly could, there would be limits. It was consumable, so it would probably work for a while before gradually disappearing.

“Still, it’s better than nothing.”

He stored that carefully too.

He would keep hunting Tigers in the future, so if more of the same reward dropped, he planned to keep collecting them.

“Still, it would’ve been nice if at least one of them was a weapon.”

The closest thing to a weapon was the small Laser Cutter.

But that did not really seem like a weapon either.

“They’re good, but it’s a little disappointing.”

That was all it was. A little disappointment.

With a faint laugh, he dusted off a spot and lay down, watching people chatter on the community board until night fell.

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