WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 34

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- Tiger spotted in Logging Forest

ㄴ What are they talking about now?

A couple of people had reported it.

But with no photos or videos to back up the posts, most people assumed they were just bored and baiting reactions as usual.

The posters grew frustrated, but even that was dismissed as bait. In the end, no one reacted at all.

‘Was I being too careless?’

Come to think of it, maybe it would be better not to openly show Sangun around.

Hiding it would be a hassle, but that might still be better than letting even more trouble crop up.

‘If I keep it out, I’ll have to look after it too.’

This place was colder than the Northern Forest.

If Sangun stayed outside for too long, there was naturally a greater chance something would go wrong.

‘Stay inside for now.’

After stroking Sangun, Seo Hajin sent it back into the Subspace and gave it plenty of food. He did not know when he might need to bring it out again, so he was preparing in advance.

‘Then where should I go now?’

One of his original goals had been to get lumber for firewood. He could do that here as well. The other users who had run away earlier also seemed to have been logging.

‘It’s awkwardly far for Wolves from the north to come this way. But it’s not like I came deep into the east, either.’

Maybe that was why.

There were no nearby monsters that could really be called mobs.

‘It’s so peaceful.’

Other than the cold, it felt like he had wandered into some forest somewhere on Earth. The trees seemed thicker and taller, but there were probably forests on Earth with giant trees too.

“Should I try one first?”

He walked over to a nearby tree. After circling it once and checking its size, he gave a small nod.

‘I can’t do this with the cutter.’

The Laser Cutter could be used for logging.

But it was only convenient if the tree was thin enough to be completely cut through by tracing the cutter around it. Otherwise, extra work would be needed.

‘It would work on a reasonably thin tree, but smaller trees are actually rarer in forests in this Area.’

That had been the case in the north.

It would probably be no different here. Even if he cut down a tree, it would likely respawn after a certain amount of time.

‘This size should be fine.’

Typhoon stopped in place and opened the Subspace. What emerged was Brown, his fifth Avatar.

He positioned the two Avatars on opposite sides of the tree, then took something else out of the Subspace.

A massive felling saw nearly five meters long.

It was crudely made, and its weight was no joke.

‘This height should do.’

He had chosen a saw instead of an axe because it would make less noise.

He had heard that people logged with saws in this field. This felling saw had also been bought from the marketplace.

‘It was pretty expensive.’

Probably because it used so much iron.

Apparently, it was meant to be operated by several people from both sides. But with his Avatars at Level 30, two of them could manage well enough.

And so the sawing began.

He had considered bringing out two more Avatars if the work proved difficult, but there was no need. The work went smoothly enough.

It took roughly ten minutes to cut down a tree around two meters in diameter.

‘Resting will probably take longer than sawing.’

He had deliberately pushed them harder, but that was because he had rest in mind from the start.

In this cold, it was better to finish quickly and rest in the Subspace than to pace themselves.

‘That aside.’

He moved Juggernaut and looked at the tree inside the Subspace. Its base had been cut through, but its branches and leaves were still attached, taking up a considerable amount of space.

“Rest isn’t the problem. Processing all this will be work too.”

Loggers did not make good money for no reason. Cutting down trees was not the end of it. They had to sort and process the wood by purpose and size before turning it into products.

“I just need firewood.”

Fortunately, he did not need to handle everything himself. Items in the Subspace could be processed with skills just as if they were in his inventory.

Still, perhaps because the target was so large, it was inevitable that it would take some time even with a skill.

‘It would be hard to just click once and finish, right?’

Maybe it would be possible if he strengthened the skill enough. But he was not sure there was any reason to invest that heavily in woodworking.

‘Dry the leaves and use them for bedding. Trim the smaller branches... Then compress these into firewood.’

Some of the firewood sold on the marketplace had been made that way. Small branches, bark, and other scraps compressed into solid chunks.

They were similar to wood pellets, except each chunk was around the size of a fist.

‘There’s no reason to make them smaller.’

The more he reduced the size, compressed the material, or did detailed work, the longer the skill took and the more stamina it consumed.

He shook his head and set the process to be as quick and simple as possible.

The tree in the Subspace was gradually stripped down, while firewood, dried leaves, and other materials began piling up in one corner.

‘It’s good that I expanded this beforehand.’

Using a skill on something outside the inventory required several conditions to be met, including maintaining contact with the target.

Naturally, he could not handle something like this by tapping away at a system window. But he had the Subspace, wide enough to fit an entire tree.

‘If not for all the Wolf byproducts, I could fit more in here. But one tree is enough for now.’

Even after cutting down just one tree, he had gained a considerable amount of firewood along with unprocessed logs.

He had not processed or split the logs because he could put them on the marketplace as they were.

‘Should I sell them?’

He could get a good price if he sold them now.

But he was not short on Points at the moment.

‘This is peak season, though.’

Users needed firewood.

Things had gotten so bad that people had been caught trying to secretly tear apart other camps’ wooden palisades, leading to bloodshed.

‘It seems like splitting them into firewood earns more than selling them as logs.’

He might once have been able to get more for unprocessed timber, but demand for firewood had become enormous, sending those prices soaring.

‘Let’s split them.’

He considered making boards in several different sizes, but people would probably just buy them from the marketplace to use as firewood anyway. It seemed better to turn them into firewood from the beginning.

The work continued.

Once he had settled on a direction, the pace picked up.

Since all his Avatars shared Skill Slots, all five Avatars could use the same skill at once.

“I can recover stamina by eating.”

The processing finished in about as much time as the logging had taken. Seo Hajin nodded at the pile of firewood filling one side of the Subspace, then listed everything except what he planned to keep for himself on the marketplace.

It sold almost instantly.

“What?”

Had everyone been watching the marketplace?

The listings sold off in batches as soon as he posted them. They were all gone in less than a minute.

- What was that firewood just now? Who sold it?

ㄴ No idea. Didn’t see the name.

ㄴ I was waiting and managed to get some.

- What? Firewood was listed?

ㄴ Yeah.

ㄴ Fuck, I was taking a dump.

ㄴ You should’ve kept the marketplace open on one side while taking a dump. What, no foresight?

Users treated it as either a stroke of good fortune after a long time, or someone’s mistake.

But they were wrong.

- What? More firewood just got listed.

About twenty minutes later, a sizeable amount of firewood appeared on the marketplace again. It sold at a similar pace.

Then, around thirty minutes after that, more appeared.

- Is Juggernaut out of his mind?

- It was Juggernaut.

- He’s logging in the north too?

ㄴ He’s actually insane.

ㄴ What about the Wolves?

ㄴ He has a party. They’re probably guarding him.

ㄴ Guarding him, my ass. Hahaha.

The response came because he had listed the firewood under Juggernaut’s name.

Since they could not even scout the Northern Field because of the cold, they misunderstood and thought Juggernaut’s party had started logging there as well.

“No. It’s not exactly a misunderstanding.”

What they had gotten wrong was that Seo Hajin was not in the Northern Field right now. But there was no need to correct them.

“I heard logging gives experience too. I wonder how much it gives.”

He had heard there was a feature that let people view their experience bar like their health bar, but he had not found it yet.

He continued logging, resting, processing, and selling as he gradually moved deeper into the forest.

‘They call it a basin, but I can’t really tell.’

He had expected the land to dip sharply downward when he crossed into the field, but it did not feel that way.

Looking into the distance from above, the edges did seem a little higher. But maybe it only looked that way because he already knew this was supposed to be a basin.

‘They said it flooded during the Rainy Season.’

He remembered hearing that most of this field had been submerged during the previous Rainy Season.

But it had probably not suffered worse damage than Rabbit Field because of the giant trees that had driven their roots deep into the ground.

‘So that’s what it looks like.’

He could see trees in the distance.

Small buildings perched among their branches began to appear one after another.

But as Seo Hajin approached, he found himself tilting his head more and more often.

‘There’s nobody here?’

There were treehouses, but there were no tracks in the snow or signs that people had come and gone. They looked like they had been abandoned for quite some time.

Most of the treehouses in the area were the same. The buildings remained, but there were no people.

‘It could be even colder up in the trees.’

On top of that, treehouses had their own difficulties when it came to making fires. People would only be able to try it after setting up proper fire barriers and preparing ways to put fires out.

Still, even considering that, it was strange.

If they were going to abandon the place, they could have dismantled it and sold it as firewood. Why leave it behind?

There was no particular discussion about it on the message boards either.

Searching for keywords related to the eastern forest only turned up the usual complaints about firewood shortages, along with short-lived posts whenever a batch appeared, sold out, was bought, or was missed.

‘There are quite a few treehouses gathered together. This must have been a residential area.’

What reason could there have been for people to leave?

What could have made them abandon their homes without even dismantling them?

‘A boss mob?’

The first things that came to mind were powerful monsters and Villains. If user hunters had been roaming around, people might have had to abandon their homes and hide.

‘If this many people left, whatever drove them away must have been serious.’

Whether it was Villains or monsters, it had to be something the residents could not fight as a group. Their enemies must either have outnumbered them or been far stronger than they were.

“...”

For now, he could not see anything.

There was nothing in his overhead view, nor in Typhoon’s eyes as he moved along the ground.

‘There were people earlier, though.’

The people who had run away after seeing him.

No, they had run away after seeing Sangun. But either way, there had been people there.

Thinking back on it now, though, the people there did not seem to have been logging.

‘They weren’t holding axes or anything.’

There were no prey animals wandering around here, so it did not seem like they had come hunting either. Then what had they been doing?

‘I don’t know.’

For now, he decided to go deeper and search for traces of people.

Of course, he did not forget to cut down suitable trees along the way, so his pace was somewhat slow.

‘It’s a shame. If the Subspace were bigger, I could cut down two or three trees at once and process them.’

As he looked at the wood being turned into firewood in the Subspace, he noticed the Wolf byproducts taking up far more space than the lumber.

‘Hmm.’

Then an idea suddenly came to him.

It was a way to free up space without throwing anything away, while also making extra money.

‘Bundle them together.’

* * *

- Is Juggernaut insane?

ㄴ Yeah?

ㄴ Look at the marketplace.

- Juggernaut’s bundling Wolf Pelts with his firewood.

ㄴ Hahahahahahahaha.

ㄴ How much dead stock does he even have?

- I’m not buying Wolf Pelts. Just sell firewood.

ㄴ Just burn the Wolf Pelts as firewood.

ㄴ They’re expensive, fuck.

Users’ complaints poured in.

But when they considered everything, the price was not unreasonable. In fact, they knew it was a good-value bundle.

Maybe that was why.

Or maybe they were just swallowing it reluctantly.

The listings that had initially remained almost untouched eventually began to sell.

Thanks to that, Seo Hajin was able to clear out his slow-moving inventory and use the space he had made to cut down more trees.

Two trees at a time.

Rather than using only Typhoon and Brown, he deployed all four Avatars besides Juggernaut and finished the work in no time.

At first, he assigned two people to each of two large saws and worked on two trees simultaneously. But after testing it, he found it was faster to have all four people work one saw and process two trees one after the other.

So he changed things depending on the thickness of the trees. When two people were enough, he used two. When it seemed like he needed more, he added another two.

There was still room to add more people to the saw, so he could have brought in Companion No. 1 and Companion No. 2 if he wanted to work even faster. But that did not seem necessary.

‘This might be worth doing after I return to the north too.’

Come to think of it, he could keep Wolves from interfering.

It would be simple if he positioned the Sanguns around the area.

‘Why did I only think of that now?’

Had the cold frozen his brain?

Shaking his head, he listed the finished firewood on the marketplace together with Wolf Pelts, bones, and other materials.

- Oh, come on. What’s with the bones now?

ㄴ Fucking hahaha.

- Sir, please bundle it with pelts instead.

ㄴ Seriously. At least pelts are warm. Bones, though? Hahaha.

- But mages buy Wolf Bones.

ㄴ Really?

ㄴ Yeah. For magic enhancement, what was it called, reagents? Anyway, I heard they use them as something consumed when casting.

ㄴ Oh, Wolf Bones sell when you list them separately too. Then why doesn’t Juggernaut sell them separately?

ㄴ No idea. He’s a weird guy.

ㄴ Didn’t you see the picture? He obviously looks like a Barbarian Warrior.

ㄴ Is his brain actually tiny?

“That’s harsh.”

He already knew Wolf Bones would sell reasonably well on their own. He only bundled them with the firewood because they sold much better that way.

“Now I can sell them even to people who don’t need them.”

A few users pointed that out and guessed at his true intentions, but the overall reaction was still mostly complaints.

He understood.

It would be strange not to get angry at such obvious bundling.

‘If I put myself in their shoes, I’d be angry too.’

But he had his own circumstances.

This was clearly the perfect chance to clear out slow-moving inventory.

‘Once I go back and start hunting again, it’ll pile up in no time.’

Of course, he was not planning to return right away.

Since he had come this far, he wanted to explore this field a little more. He also wanted to find out where everyone had gone.

‘It’s been so long since I had a proper conversation with someone...’

He had spent so long without speaking that his tongue felt stiff.

He talked with his Avatars and spoke to himself from time to time, which helped somewhat. Still, he missed having a real conversation, at least a little.

‘Hmm?’

How long had he been walking?

As thicker snowflakes began to fall between the trees, he spotted people moving not far away.

They were roughly two hundred meters away.

From above, he could see two people.

Farther behind them was a larger group that seemed to be following the pair.

‘Are they together?’

The two in front could have been scouts or vanguards. Or they could have been fugitives and pursuers.

“...”

After watching for a moment, it seemed more likely they were fugitives and pursuers.

There was too great a difference between the clothing and equipment of those fleeing and those following them.

‘They’re practically half-naked.’

They were dressed far too lightly to endure the cold here. Hunching their bodies tightly, they still walked as quickly as they could.

But the snow on the ground did not conceal their tracks. The people following them were not far behind, moving easily as though they were out for a stroll.

Their direction happened to pass close to where he was.

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