WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
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◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 40: 040
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“Hmm.”
He skimmed the board to see what had happened over the last two days. It was quite a spectacle.
Users were saying he had left this place, and some Villains had already started raising their heads again, provoking him.
“The Necromancer, right.”
It was information he already knew. There was someone like that in the remaining Villain Clan.
“Still, I heard they couldn’t handle hundreds of corpses.”
Controlling corpses with magic required mana in real time. It was impossible to operate numbers beyond what one could handle in the first place.
Even so, killing people one after another to pile up that many corpses could not be solely for the purpose of raising them and putting them to work.
“Are they planning something like a corpse explosion?”
He did not know whether such a skill existed, but it was clear they intended to use those corpses as consumables.
‘They keep provoking me.’
The Villains calling him out. Some even attached photos of the horrible things they had done in the past.
In the original world, the police could have arrested them immediately. But here, there seemed to be quite a few people whose limits on morality and reason had come undone.
‘They think it’s a game.’
They could restart after dying. And their bodies were different from their real ones.
‘Some people supposedly make them identical to their real bodies, but there probably aren’t many.’
As he traveled, he occasionally stopped. The trees in Subspace became Firewood, and once the Firewood sold on the marketplace, more space opened up. He was simply filling it again.
Crack!
Thanks to Heavy Attack, there was no longer any need for two or more people to spend several minutes sawing down a tree with a large saw.
‘This uses more stamina, but I can recover that.’
It was better to reduce the time spent.
He nodded, then noticed the gazes that had begun following him from a distance.
They were all hiding in their own ways, but Seo Hajin was looking down at them from above.
‘They don’t all seem to be Villains. Some are probably just spectators.’
The people following him from afar were likely why his location and direction of travel were being broadcast on the board almost in real time.
He did not stop them.
He could probably move without letting them spot him if he wanted to, but there did not seem to be any reason to bother.
Seo Hajin continued onward, rotating Juggernaut, Vulcan, and Stone. It was already an established fact that he possessed Subspace, so he did not hide that either.
‘It’s nice being comfortable.’
Hiding things and concealing his strength was more troublesome than he had expected.
There were still many things the outside world did not know, but perhaps those would become known once the right opportunity came along.
Boom!
Crunch!
The users cheered.
Maybe it was because the Villains stirring up trouble and provoking him had decreased considerably. But they also seemed to welcome the steady supply of Firewood on the marketplace.
-What’s this? Why is it getting cheaper?
ㄴCheaper is good, why complain
ㄴI bought a ton yesterdayㅠㅠ
ㄴYou should’ve bought in installments
ㄴWhy does this sound like stocksㅋㅋ
Was it because those who had been held captive were freed?
Aside from Juggernaut, more people seemed to be listing Firewood and lumber on the marketplace little by little.
Still, Juggernaut supplied the greatest volume, so some people hoped he would stop clearing out Villains and just keep chopping trees.
-Even Juggernaut can’t handle hundreds of corpses, can he?
ㄴHe wiped out hundreds of people, corpses should be easyㅋㅋ
ㄴNo, the people didn’t all come at him at once. And I heard most of them ran away.
There were quite a few opinions that even Juggernaut would have difficulty facing a Necromancer who was practically a one-person army.
On the other hand, some pointed out that the Necromancer had never properly displayed their abilities so far.
Countless eyes gathered on the board.
The bitter cold forced everyone to curl up somewhere out of the wind. Naturally, there was not much to do besides browse the community, so many people watched the live coverage.
Seo Hajin did not hurry.
If he had intended to finish things quickly, he would have ridden Sangun at full speed. But he did not.
‘They’re gathering, just as expected.’
The remaining Villains.
The ones who had quietly raised their heads and even begun provoking people were gathering in groups throughout the field.
Somewhere, users were being kidnapped again. Elsewhere, something similar happened, but it seemed the Villains had been robbed instead.
‘If I’m going to take them out, it’s more efficient to gather them in one place and hit them properly.’
At some point, provocations like, “Why isn’t Juggernaut coming?” had disappeared.
He was already heading straight toward the remaining Villains.
* * *
“What do you think will happen?”
At the top of a massive tree, several people stood with a branch beneath each of their feet, like protagonists in a martial arts movie.
Their attention was fixed on a sturdy defensive camp some distance away.
From the front, its tall walls of individually cut logs might have seemed overwhelming. But from their height, they could see clearly inside.
“Hm? What did you say?”
“I asked what you think will happen.”
What had he been thinking about?
The man had worn a blank expression for a moment. Then he adjusted his rabbit-fur hat, loosened by the wind, and wrapped his scarf more securely around his neck.
“I don’t know.”
They came from the western side of the Area, Grassland Plains, also called Rabbit Field.
They might have arrived too late, but Juggernaut had gone quiet for several days for some reason, allowing them to arrive in time.
They had not come merely to watch a fight.
They intended to invite Juggernaut into their Clan. It would be closer to extending an invitation than recruiting him.
“If he dies, then we came all this way for nothing.”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying you don’t know.”
The woman sounded slightly sulky.
The man shook his head a little.
“I really don’t know.”
Even when he suggested recruiting Juggernaut himself, even when they decided to come here and crossed the dangerous Rocky Mountain Cliff Field in a straight line, he had actually wondered whether Juggernaut might lose.
“If he started losing, I planned to help at the crucial moment and earn his favor.”
But something had changed.
Especially over the last few days, Juggernaut seemed to have gained a new power.
‘Even from the video, it was no joke.’
Someone had recorded it.
The quality was poor since it had been filmed from a distance, but they could still tell what Juggernaut was doing.
He was just chopping trees.
It could be dismissed as simple logging, but anyone with a sharp eye would have felt a chill down their spine.
“I don’t know if simple corpse control can stop an attack like that.”
“But there are hundreds of them. If it’s a consumable curse type, Juggernaut could be in trouble.”
“That’s possible too.”
There were curse-type spells that consumed corpses like reagents. They did not know whether the Necromancer possessed one, but if they did, Juggernaut would not have an easy time.
“They say he’s almost here.”
“I’m watching too.”
Juggernaut’s live location kept appearing on the board. Some broadcasters even kindly marked it on a map.
At most, ten minutes remained.
Without the trees, they would already be close enough to see him with the naked eye.
“I heard he got delayed again on the way?”
“He chopped trees... and apparently dug up the ground too.”
“Exactly. What was he thinking there?”
The man was curious about him in many ways.
People said he had Subspace, and his party members were probably inside it.
“There’s no way they can stay in there that long.”
The man tilted his head.
Subspace was not an unfamiliar concept. It still occasionally appeared in Boss Chests.
But everyone knew how many Points it took to expand one and increase its stay time. That was why everyone understood just how absurd the things Juggernaut had shown so far were.
“Do Wolf Pelts sell for that much?”
“Didn’t they not sell, so he bundled them with Firewood?”
“Exactly. Where did he make that much money?”
“Maybe his party members pay him tribute.”
“Hmm. That’s possible.”
As they spoke, they spotted a group moving in from the distance. They appeared to be the people following Juggernaut and broadcasting his movements.
And beyond them.
Someone rode atop an enormous Tiger, just as the rumors said, as it pushed through the snow-covered forest.
“Wow...”
The woman gasped.
He looked like a warrior incarnate.
No one would think it was only an appearance.
“He stopped.”
“...What is he doing?”
The Tiger that had been prowling along occasionally stopped. It scratched the ground with one forepaw, then moved again.
“Is it doing that scratching thing cats do?”
“I don’t know.”
“There you go again.”
Eventually, Juggernaut reached the wooden wall. More precisely, he stopped about fifty meters away.
He climbed down from the Tiger, stared at the wall for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“Does he think it looks manageable?”
“Hmm. It would be dangerous to approach carelessly.”
That wall was not simply a collection of log pillars.
Traps were hidden within it, and dozens of corpses raised by the Necromancer were already waiting behind it.
Destroying the wall itself would consume stamina, but afterward, he would have to deal with the corpses pouring out in a swarm.
“Isn’t he calling his party members?”
“He must have something in mind.”
Attention converged from every direction.
Former slaves who had been freed, spectators who had crossed over from other fields like them, and defeated Villains alike all watched him.
Then Juggernaut pulled something from empty air.
It was a thick-looking club.
“A club? All of a sudden?”
The woman muttered, unable to understand.
What he took out next was even stranger.
“Isn’t that a rock?”
As if he were practicing batting alone in a park, Juggernaut held the club in his right hand while casually tossing and catching a rock about the size of his fist with his left.
Then, at one point, he tossed it upward and swung the club at the falling rock.
Boom!
“Eek!”
Even from that distance, the thunderous noise struck their ears. The woman standing on the branch jumped in surprise and nearly fell.
But there was something else to be surprised by.
The loud noise was not the only thing that happened.
The lower part of the wooden wall where the rock struck had caved in as if hit by a catapult.
“...”
The man swallowed dryly.
His mouth became even drier when he saw Juggernaut tilt his head, as though dissatisfied with something.
“I don’t know what skill that is, but surely he can’t fire attacks like that continuously...”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Ah.”
At the sight that followed, both the woman and the man forgot their words and could only stare with their mouths open.
Most of those watching from a distance wore similar expressions.
-The Necromancer is screwed
ㄴFor real
-The Villain bastards are already looking ready to run
ㄴI saw it too
ㄴThose bastards can’t hide their expressions
-When is Juggernaut coming? (He actually came)
ㄴAh, don’t comeㅋㅋ
ㄴYou idiots were the ones telling him to come
That was when it happened.
Just as the barrage of cannonball-like rocks had nearly destroyed one side of the wooden wall, something taller than the wall itself appeared above it.
-Wow, what the hell is that
Everyone watching from high up saw it.
Hundreds of corpses gathered together from one side, forming a massive lump.
-So that’s what they were aiming for
ㄴCan they maintain that for long? Seems difficult
ㄴThat would be broken if they can
The mood on the board shifted again.
Even Juggernaut might have trouble handling a giant monster like that alone.
And since it was a mass made of corpses, even if one part was smashed apart, it could surely be repaired using other corpses.
In that situation, Juggernaut simply took out another rock, just as he had before.
The difference was that there were now more people.
-They’re out
ㄴㅋㅋㅋ
Vulcan and Stone.
The two warriors appeared at Juggernaut’s sides.
People wondered when they saw that both of them held clubs like Juggernaut’s.
“No way.”
The man watching from the distant tree opened his mouth.
“...Seriously?”
What he saw was them striking rocks one after another, firing them like cannonballs just as Juggernaut had done.
“He wasn’t the only one who got it?”
It might not be an individual skill, but a party-shared skill. If so, they needed to invite him into the Clan even more.
How useful would that be for hunting?
But it had a drawback.
Accuracy.
“Hmm.”
Since they were striking uneven rocks with wooden clubs, it was not as easy as expected to send them in the direction they wanted.
When attacking the wall, it had not mattered where the rocks hit. But against the corpse mass, it would be pointless unless they struck properly.
Thwack!
Still, one thing was certain. When they landed a solid hit, they dealt considerable damage.
A corpse forming part of the mass burst apart and was peeled away.
But there were still many corpses.
As everyone had expected, the Necromancer repeatedly raised more corpses and repaired the damaged mass.
At the same time, some of the corpses on one side of the mass evaporated into the air, becoming black smoke that spewed forward.
A gas that looked unhealthy at a glance.
Juggernaut and his companions stepped back from where they had been standing, but they could not avoid exposure entirely.
“Why aren’t they going inside?”
Someone said it.
Many people had the same question.
The wall had already been breached.
There was still some left at the bottom, but it was low enough for even someone around Level 10 to jump over easily.
The corpse mass beyond it was threatening, but should Juggernaut not be fighting it directly instead of poking at it with rocks like this?
“The corpse mass isn’t coming outside either.”
“That’s because the Necromancer is inside. There must be a limit to the distance they can control it from.”
“Ah.”
The woman on the tree nodded at her senior’s words and looked back at Juggernaut.
He kept firing rocks for some reason, but they seemed less powerful than before.
Then, at one point.
Juggernaut and the two companions beside him stopped moving, disappeared into empty air, and vanished.
“...?”
Those who had lost sight of them for a moment soon looked deep inside the wall with startled eyes.
Countless corpses.
A group of Villains positioned beyond them.
Juggernaut stood right beside the Necromancer, who they should have only reached after getting past even that human wall.
“Does Subspace have a teleportation function?”
“It can’t.”
But there was no other answer.
Unless every party member possessed a similar movement skill, it was difficult to explain how Juggernaut’s other companions had also appeared there.
“Ah.”
Then came the carnage.
Juggernaut’s group no longer held clubs, but bladed weapons. Every time they swung or thrust them, someone blocking their way was split in half or burst apart.
“It’s over, right?”
“I don’t know. Not yet.”
The man did not take his eyes off the scene.
Then he noticed something strange.
Juggernaut and his companions moved as if they could see behind their own backs.
‘No. It’s beyond that.’
They moved with the freedom of people watching the entire scene clearly from above, just as he was now.
‘There really is something.’
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