WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

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

Chapter 30

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As expected, people came flooding in.

Photos and videos were being posted to the community board almost in real time.

“Good thing I pulled out early.”

The riverside, once famous for Pull Hunting, now had more users than Wolves. Efficiency had dropped accordingly, and people were starting to clash with one another.

“When too many people crowd around a honey pot, it turns into a spit-soaked mess.”

Instead of sweetness, all that remained was a sour smell.

That was exactly what was happening now.

Seo Hajin later confirmed that some people had gone deep into the forest, moving in parties or Clans instead of staying by the river.

If they hunted in groups, they could probably handle a pack of Wolves well enough. Still, they would have to split the rewards among everyone, so he did not know how much each person would actually get.

‘Wolves feel a little underwhelming for how many there are.’

Hunting nonstop would be efficient, but people needed to rest eventually.

It would be fine if they could endure with natural recovery alone, but if they had to use recovery potions made by crafters, they might even lose money.

‘They’ll figure it out.’

Everyone would return before sunset.

There might be a few who stayed afterward, but probably not many.

The biggest reason everyone was so excited was that there was no boss for the moment. The fact that the boss had been defeated was nearly as significant.

Once a boss was killed and the Field Level rose, items that had not appeared before could begin dropping.

‘I heard even regular mobs have an extremely low chance of dropping Key Fragments or Item Boxes.’

Seo Hajin was looking forward to that as well.

From now on, those would be added to what he had already been collecting.

‘They say they barely drop, but if I keep killing them, I should get some eventually.’

He killed hundreds of Wolves each day.

Surely a few would drop.

‘Still, should I send this guy out as soon as it recovers?’

The Tiger was still recovering in his inventory.

As it turned out, it had been Level 15 from the beginning.

It would do its share if he deployed it immediately. The problem was whether the Wolves would become too afraid of it to approach.

‘They need to gather on their own for hunting to stay efficient.’

He decided to take it out first. If it interfered with hunting, he would think of something else.

“But they won’t come all the way here, right?”

In truth, anyone could reach this place by following the water upstream. Anyone doing Pull Hunting only had to keep heading upriver.

“I did my best to hide it.”

That was why he had not widened the cave entrance too much.

He had not anticipated this exact situation, but he certainly had not wanted bothersome people wandering in.

“Fortunately, things found in nature don’t become items unless they’re processed further.”

He had dug stones out from inside the cave.

He picked out the larger, sturdier ones and stacked them outside the entrance. Up close, they would look unnatural, but from a distance, they just looked like part of the cliff wall.

“Rather than this, maybe I should finish the entrance behind the waterfall first.”

If he properly opened that side, there would be no need to maintain the entrance on the cliff face. He would get a little wet coming and going, but it would give him an entrance that could not be seen from outside.

“Hammers and chisels would be noisy, so... I’ll use this.”

Moving Stone, he took out the Laser Cutter.

It was slower because it shaved away the cliff little by little rather than smashing it apart, but it was quiet and clean.

‘This is better than I expected.’

It had another advantage too. Slow as it was, he could carve the wall into whatever size and shape he wanted.

‘It’s nice that the head can pivot too.’

He could fire the laser at a right angle rather than only straight ahead. He could carve a groove, insert the cutter into it, and start cutting sideways.

‘It seems to keep its cutting power for about two meters... That’s enough.’

The stone he cut away went straight into Subspace. It was too heavy to put in his inventory.

“Can I sell stone blocks in the marketplace too?”

There were people who worked with stone, but these days, the trend was gradually shifting toward metalworking.

It felt as though humanity’s evolution had accelerated, rapidly progressing from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

Still, for construction rather than equipment or tools, large blocks of stone like these would be more useful.

Looking through the marketplace, he found several large, roughly shaped boulders listed for sale.

“How did they put these in their inventory? They have to be over capacity.”

Were they maintaining an over-capacity state while doing business? That was probably the case, unless they had Subspace like he did.

“Ah. Item Storage Boxes. Maybe that would work.”

But if so, the box would have to be enormous...

As he scratched Juggernaut’s cheek and thought, Stone cut another block free from the wall and placed it in Subspace.

‘At this rate, I might finish before sunset.’

The work went more smoothly than he had expected.

He also got faster as he became accustomed to it.

The downside was that he had to regularly drain health from his body to recharge the Laser Cutter’s battery.

Stone could not handle it alone, so Juggernaut and Vulcan had to give up health as well.

‘With the three of us sharing the burden, natural recovery can mostly cover it.’

Fortunately, he did not need to worry about it breaking.

Perhaps because it was treated as a kind of artifact, it would repair itself over time even if damaged.

The same was true of the Blood Purification Device.

The Nanobot Stimpack was different. Even if the device itself recovered, the nanobots inside apparently did not.

‘It would’ve been nice if I could use it more than once.’

Could he modify it somehow? Or do something through the system settings?

If he could make it reusable, it could serve as a substitute for potions.

‘I don’t know how fast it heals, but they said the potions being made now don’t instantly fix you like in games either.’

Maybe that was only because the medicines currently being produced were poor quality.

Later, perhaps wounds would really stop bleeding and fresh flesh would grow back the moment someone drank one.

‘Hmm.’

Even while he was thinking about other things, the stone cutting continued.

And before sunset, he truly managed to make a passage connected to the space behind the waterfall.

Whooosh.

The sound of water came through the crack in the rock.

Instead of widening it into an obvious hole, he made the entrance zigzag.

Like a defensive wall added in front of a castle gate, it was meant to keep the opening from being visible from outside.

‘Even with a waterfall, the back isn’t completely hidden.’

When the water level dropped, it would become easier to see.

Besides, more people than expected assumed there might be treasure behind a waterfall if they found one.

‘Probably because of games and movies.’

The completed entrance had another advantage. Since the zigzag passage blocked the front, water did not spray inside.

‘It barely blocks the sound, but it’s still better than hearing it directly.’

All that remained was filling in the original entrance, the opening that led out through the cliff.

That was not difficult, and he finished it quickly.

“Now it finally feels a little like a hideout.”

It still felt like only the beginning.

The inside was still narrow and crude, so he would need to keep working on it.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay here, though.”

How to return home was still discussed on the community board every day.

The most likely possibility, at least for now, was killing every Field Boss.

Three fields currently had defeated bosses.

Four remained.

‘They say the boss at the rocky mountain cliffs is probably a Giant Eagle, and the Swamp below it is likely some kind of snake.’

He had already seen pictures of the boss in the eastern forest where the Loggers had settled. It was a huge Bear.

There was little information on the southern Wasteland, but people guessed it was either a Hyena or a Wild Boar.

‘The problem is that there are barely any users over there.’

Calling them few would be generous. There were almost none.

Some people had crossed over to the rocky mountain cliffs to escape flooding during the Rainy Season, but once the rain stopped, they had hurried back out.

Even the people who remained were mostly alone, so a boss raid seemed unlikely.

‘The other places are worse.’

People said it was difficult even to breathe in the Swamp because of the rotting smell and poisonous gas. The moment they entered, their health began dropping, so they could not stay long.

Some could remain now that their levels had risen and their natural recovery had improved, but no one wanted to live there.

‘The Wasteland is... the Wasteland.’

Unless someone was trying to run away from other people, there was no reason to seek out such a remote environment.

‘It’s still a distant problem.’

No matter how he thought about it, those areas did not seem likely to be conquered anytime soon.

Eventually, a Clan or party would probably form an expedition and deal with them.

‘They’re too far from here.’

The closest places were the rocky mountain cliffs directly south and the Logging Forest to the southeast.

‘Giant Eagle, Giant Bear... The Bear is a little better.’

How would he even deal with something that flew?

And he had heard it did not travel alone, but with subordinate birds. Hunting the Bear seemed preferable.

‘Still, that one will probably be killed eventually, even without me.’

He nodded and opened the community to check on the other users.

As he expected, most of the people who had entered the Northern Forest returned at sunset. A few remained, but there did not seem to be many.

There were stories about people who had found and eaten unknown fruit, only to be poisoned. He also saw a post about someone who let their guard down because the Tiger was gone, then got dragged off by a Leopard.

“A group brawl broke out at the riverside.”

It was a rare opportunity.

Wipe out another group and get their Personal Effects too? Some people could not resist that kind of thinking.

“It’s mostly over now... It should be fine.”

If people were still packed together, he had considered simply resting through the night.

But things seemed to have quieted down enough, so he decided to head out.

Unlike before, he did not send the Avatars out in turns.

He deployed all three at once.

They had rested well during the day, so they probably did not need to sleep. He also wanted to prepare for the possibility of encountering other users or getting into a conflict.

‘There are definitely more of them.’

As he emerged from the waterfall, getting wet from the start, he could tell that the Wolf pack he encountered in the forest was clearly different from before.

For one thing, each pack seemed slightly larger than in the past. The individual Wolves also appeared to be higher level.

‘More of them aren’t running away.’

The Wolves’ awareness range also seemed wider than before. Wolves farther away were being drawn in as well.

On top of that, the mobs felt fiercer than before.

It was not merely that they fled less. They were more aggressive.

‘Before, they would’ve avoided me or backed off before coming at me again. Now they pretty much just rush in.’

One mistake and he would be surrounded and ganged up on. Even with the Nemesis effect he had built up, their attacks still dealt considerable damage.

But from another perspective, the mobs were coming to him on their own. That meant less time spent hunting each one.

‘Managing health is rough.’

One Avatar would probably have trouble handling this alone, so it seemed better to keep moving with all three from now on.

‘There’s nothing I can do about today, but I should put night hunting on hold until I get used to this.’

At least taming the Tiger had given him an additional effect.

Thanks to Soul Resonance, some of the Tiger’s abilities had been added to him, improving his senses overall.

Attacks he would have noticed only after being hit before were now visible to him, more or less.

Even attacks he could see but had been unable to avoid before were now somewhat avoidable.

‘The problem is that dodging one means getting hit extra somewhere else... Well, I’ll have to deal with that.’

The three of them could share the hits.

Thinking positively, he skillfully controlled the three Avatars and gradually adapted to a battle that was both familiar and new.

* * *

The Field Boss returned.

The Tiger was stronger than before.

The expedition users’ windfall was over.

Seo Hajin’s, on the other hand, was only beginning.

“Changing weapons was definitely better.”

He had switched weapons.

Instead of the large, heavy weapons he had used before, he chose something lighter and faster.

The three Avatars did not use identical weapons, but over time, they had gradually become similar.

Weapons that could cut, strike, or be thrown if necessary.

Their shape was close to the glaives often used by orcs in various media.

However, the shaft was long enough that, when held near the back, it could be used more like a short spear.

At first, he made stone-bladed versions as a test.

But no matter how much he compressed and processed them, their durability wore down too quickly.

So he spent some Points and commissioned steel ones.

The reason all three Avatars ended up using the same weapon was that an artisan user offered a discount on several copies of the same weapon.

‘As long as they work.’

He had ten glaives made in total.

That was enough for each Avatar to rotate through three and still leave one spare. Even so, their durability wore down so quickly that he had already commissioned more.

Once a weapon was damaged to a certain degree, he put it in his inventory for repairs. But even when rotating three weapons, they were breaking faster than they could be repaired.

That also meant he was killing that many Wolves.

And Subspace was filling with that much loot.

Supply was now reaching the point of exceeding demand, so he was packing everything tightly into Subspace for the time being.

But that had limits too.

“How are 400 Blocks not enough?”

It meant a space four meters wide, five meters high, and twenty meters deep.

There was a separate space inside where he did not apply the condition-preservation effect, but around 80 percent of Subspace was still for storage.

‘I’m expanding it by one or two Blocks per hour, but it’s piling up faster than that.’

He could spend 1,000 Points to immediately expand it by five Blocks at a time, but that still felt wasteful.

In the end, he rearranged the inside of Subspace and adjusted the shelves to use the space more efficiently.

But that quickly reached its limit as well.

‘Should I go for small margins and large sales?’

But he shook his head.

There was no guarantee that users would buy all the Wolf materials just because he threw them onto the marketplace cheaply. Their inventories and storage boxes would have limits too.

‘It can’t be helped.’

The loot was piling up at a frightening rate, but so was his income in Points.

When it seemed there was no other option, he spent 1,000 Points and continued expanding by five Blocks at a time.

Fortunately, basic expansion added at least 30 Blocks a day, sometimes nearly 50.

Most of that newly expanded space was being filled with Wolf materials.

‘The Nemesis effect has stacked up so much that hides drop almost once every two Wolves now.’

At this rate, eventually every Wolf he killed would drop a full set of materials.

‘Is this right?’

Still, he could not throw them away.

They were too valuable.

‘It’s different from when I only had an inventory.’

He had plenty of Points.

He was still earning more.

It felt strange to spend them so freely, but it was not as though he had anything else to use them on.

‘There are no Skills left in the marketplace.’

Even the bizarre Skills he would not have glanced at before had disappeared.

When he looked into why, there was a good reason.

‘There’s an ability that can break down Skills?’

He did not know how it worked, but it seemed some people could grind up Skill Coins to create something that strengthened their own Skills.

Skill grade did not matter, though higher grades supposedly produced more of it.

In any case, those people had begun buying up marketplace Skills starting from the lowest grade. Prices had risen across the board, or listings had disappeared entirely.

‘We need to raise the Field Level further.’

Skills could apparently come from the Item Boxes dropped by mobs in fields where the boss had been defeated and the level raised.

Item Boxes themselves were extremely rare, but perhaps their drop rate would rise as the Field Level increased.

‘I haven’t even seen one yet.’

He did not know whether the Nemesis effect did not apply to them, or whether the chance was still too low even with the effect.

For now, he only continued killing mobs.

One day passed, then another.

Before he knew it, the leaves changed color and fell, and frost began to settle.

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