WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 43: 043

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“Fuck, it’s hot.”

There had been signs even before he crossed the field boundary.

The snowfall gradually thinned.

The trees and ground were damp.

The humidity in the air grew worse and worse. Eventually, it became hard to breathe, like walking into the bathing room of a public bathhouse for the first time.

The reason was obvious.

It was the result of the different environments and temperatures of two fields meeting at their boundary.

Air thick enough to make breathing difficult.

The trees had vanished as he crossed into the field, replaced by dust hanging in the air.

Most of it had settled near the ground, perhaps because of the humidity, but every breath still carried a strong scent of dirt.

He frequently switched out Sangun as it suffered, pushing their speed until they barely managed to leave the boundary zone behind.

At some point, the moisture in the air nearly vanished completely. He must have taken off his coat around then.

‘Hmm.’

It was not unbearably hot.

The problem was that, coat aside, most of his clothes had been suited for winter.

Even with his senses lowered, the feeling of sweat collecting beneath his clothes and turning sticky was not pleasant.

Only after switching to an Avatar dressed in the clothes he had worn during summer did he finally have enough room to look around comfortably.

‘They called it a Wasteland, but it isn’t completely barren.’

It was more like a grassland with sparse vegetation.

He had once seen a nature documentary showing drought-stricken Africa. This place looked somewhat similar.

‘There are trees too.’

They resembled beech trees, but a closer look showed that they were dead trees with all their leaves gone.

‘There are more thorn bushes than grass, though.’

Thorn bushes grew densely here and there, like discarded netting. Small animals were tangled up and dead in some of them.

‘They said the fruit smells delicious.’

The scent lured animals in and got them caught in the thorns. He had heard that the thorns themselves sucked blood.

A carnivorous plant.

‘Avoiding them is not difficult, but getting tangled in one is apparently pretty dangerous.’

He would not get caught during the day.

They were clearly visible.

But late at night, they could be quite dangerous. Apparently, a fair number of people had gotten caught while moving around after dark.

‘The fruit is edible, but people don’t want to eat fruit from something that drinks animal blood.’

And despite the scent, it supposedly tasted bad.

That was probably the bigger reason.

There were mostly badger-like animals wandering around, with hedgehogs appearing occasionally. The Hyenas that hunted and ate them were the representative monsters of this Area.

‘They get tangled up too?’

Across the Wasteland below him, one thorn bush held a Hyena corpse that had already dried up.

It looked like it had been dead for quite some time. Its hide was crumbling, and parts of its bones showed through.

If vines could hold even a creature on a Hyena’s level, they had to be strong. He naturally became more wary.

‘There are people too.’

Maybe three kilometers away.

For once, trees and brush did not block his view, so it was easy to spot people moving around in the distance.

‘On the other hand, there’s nowhere to hide.’

There were small hills and enormous rocks scattered around. He thought he had heard that users dug burrows beneath places like those to live in.

It was no different from what he had done at the waterfall.

But since they were not up high, they would need separate defenses against intruders.

‘Hyenas are conditionally Aggressive Mobs.’

Of course, none charged at him now. There had originally been Hyenas nearby, but they had long since fled at the sight of the unfamiliar Sangun.

“Isn’t it hot?”

Grrr.

Sangun gave a nasal growl as if to say it was fine.

It even seemed to like it.

The air was stuffy and dry, but perhaps it still preferred this to the cold.

‘It does seem better.’

More than anything, the clear view was nice.

Dust rose from the ground, but it only drifted near the surface. From above, the air felt quite clear.

‘Still, they said this was a hard place to survive.’

Looking around far into the distance, it certainly seemed that way. Hunting was possible, but most of what lived here did not look particularly appetizing.

‘It would be better to earn Points and buy food from the marketplace.’

That seemed to be what users here did.

The problem was that hunting had slowed in other fields as winter arrived.

‘What can they get locally... There are Wild Boars, at least.’

He saw Wild Boars moving in small groups in the distance.

But their size alone made them seem unusual. They did not look easy to hunt.

‘No. Wait. Isn’t that the Area Boss?’

It was visible as soon as he arrived?

Puzzled, he looked more closely. It looked exactly like the photos he had seen on the community board.

Nearly ten Wild Boars moved together as if escorting one that was several times larger than the others.

‘I came here to hunt that anyway.’

He was pleased, but also a little disappointed.

If he had needed to search for it, he could have traveled through a wider part of the Area and expanded his system map.

‘There’s no need to only catch it once.’

After catching it once, he would have plenty of time to roam around for a full day afterward.

‘But what are they doing over there?’

Far from the Wild Boars, a group of people was making smoke beneath a rocky hill.

They had formed a loose semicircle around it. It looked like they were trying to catch some kind of monster.

‘I should go watch.’

He lightly shook the reins of the stopped Sangun. The Tiger growled and began walking.

“Don’t touch those. They suck blood.”

Grrr.

After hearing him, Sangun carefully avoided the thorn bushes and headed toward the rising smoke.

Soon after arriving, Seo Hajin saw the people who noticed Juggernaut freeze in surprise.

“...”

“That’s Juggernaut.”

Their expressions were awkward.

They glanced around nervously.

‘Did they commit some kind of crime?’

His reputation on the board had gotten worse, but it was not as if he had killed people indiscriminately.

Feeling a little wronged, he raised one hand in response to someone who cautiously greeted him.

“What are you all doing here?”

“Uh...”

“We’re... hunting Moles. Yes. Moles.”

“Ah. Moles.”

Those appeared here too?

He did not think he had seen anything about them on the board, but it would not be strange if they did.

‘But do people catch Moles like this?’

The smoke he had seen from above was flowing into a cave at the edge of the hill in front of them.

‘Don’t people use smoke to catch things like raccoons? I don’t really know.’

As he watched with that thought in mind, coughing suddenly echoed from inside the cave and gradually grew closer.

“...?”

Did Moles make sounds like that?

Then, what burst out of the cave was not a Mole, but a person.

A man coughed violently, tears and mucus streaming down his face.

He could not even properly swing the crude blade in his hand as he choked. Several others who looked equally weak stumbled out behind him.

“Ah.”

Only then did Seo Hajin understand why the people making smoke here had been so wary of him.

“They were Villains.”

Ordinary users had no reason to fear him.

They had reacted that way because they were Villains.

“Fuck!”

Someone gritted their teeth and lunged at the person coughing nearby.

He could not tell whether they intended to kill them or take them hostage. But whatever their intent, they failed.

Crack!

A thrown axe sank deep into their back.

The charging man collapsed, rolled once across the ground, and let out a terrible scream.

‘It was aimed at the back of his head.’

It would have hurt less if he had died instantly, but unfortunately, the throw occasionally missed.

Juggernaut shook his head, then opened Subspace as he watched the Villains hesitate between fleeing and fighting.

The other Avatars that emerged quickly cleared the scene.

Some screamed and fought back, but their resistance was insignificant.

“Thank you!”

The man whose coughing had finally stopped, along with the people who seemed to be his companions, greeted him.

Their shabby clothing was partly because this place was relatively warm, but it also seemed likely that their earnings had not been very good.

“They came over from the northern field.”

Perhaps because of the smoke, the woman still had mucus running from her nose as she spoke.

Her clothes were dirty, and she did not seem to have anything to wipe herself with. He took a spare towel from Subspace and handed it over, which made her extremely grateful.

“How did you make this?”

“If you combine and process various plant fibers, you can make something fairly similar to cotton, even if it isn’t pure cotton.”

“Ah. Plant fibers.”

The woman nodded.

When she said regretfully that they probably could not obtain them here, he took out several more towels and handed them to the others.

“The northern field, you mean Logger Forest?”

“That’s right. Juggernaut, you came from there too, didn’t you? I saw it on the board.”

“Yes. More or less.”

It turned out that some of the Villain refugees created when he had destroyed the Villains in the eastern forest had crossed over here.

Unable to change their habits, they had done the same things here, only to get caught by him.

“Are there many?”

“Ah, not many came over recently. There were Villains here from the beginning too.”

“Ah. From the beginning.”

He nodded.

Villains had always existed.

Seo Hajin had the Avatars clean up the scene while leaving Juggernaut with the users to gather information.

He took out and distributed some of the many items he had gotten from robbing the Villains, especially the supplies that were troublesome to deal with and useless to him. They were extremely grateful.

‘There’s no need to give them Personal Effects Bags.’

They reacted especially well to the Ice Generators.

They already appeared in boxes from time to time, so he had plenty in stock. But even after getting rid of them through bundle sales, his supply had increased again.

It turned out that some of those who had bought his Firewood were Villains. As he looted them, some of the things he had sold came back to him.

“Finding clean water here is difficult. Most water sources are crawling with animals...”

“I see.”

Even now, he could see such places from above.

Puddles gathered on the ground, with animals clustered around them.

“Things are so bad that we buy water to drink.”

He already knew that.

Some people listed water on the marketplace, and it apparently sold surprisingly well.

‘The profit compared to the time spent scooping it up is terrible, but people do it as a side job.’

He had seen that fishermen from the Giant Lake field mostly scooped up and sold water from there. Since they had nothing else to do while sitting around staring into space, they had started doing it.

In any case, he seemed to have gotten all the information he could from the users there. He said a casual goodbye and left the scene.

‘And now I know that thing isn’t a boss monster.’

The Wild Boar herd in the distance.

The huge one at its center was not the boss. However, he had heard that such creatures might be responsible for this Area’s higher temperature.

The reason was the flame burning at the end of the Wild Boar’s tail.

Like a special summon with a fire attribute, it had a flame at the tip of its tail.

He also heard that although hunting one was possible, it would explode after a set period once killed, like a timed bomb, and set the surrounding area ablaze.

‘I don’t think I saw that on the board.’

Some Wild Boar herds contained Flame-Tailed Boars, while others did not. He also heard that if enough Flame-Tailed Boars were killed, a boss monster would appear.

‘But no one has managed it yet.’

Fire-type monsters.

They were clearly beyond the level of ordinary animals.

‘I thought a boss monster was welcoming me as soon as I arrived, but that wasn’t it.’

Things could not be that easy.

He smiled faintly and chose his direction.

Toward the Wild Boar herd in question.

‘There’s no need to fight them head-on.’

Like when he had attacked the wooden walls, he planned to throw stones from afar.

Since they were gathered in a group, even if his accuracy was low, one of them would get hit.

“Stones... I’m a little short.”

The amount he had collected had decreased quite a bit.

He had not replenished what he had used to attack the wooden walls.

So, after looking around, he released the rabbits and had them dig into the ground.

“Pick up anything at least this big.”

A very simple instruction.

Shovel Nos. 1 through 3 nodded and burrowed into the ground in an instant, searching through the area.

During that process, he made another discovery.

He found an easy way to remove the bloodsucking thorn bushes he had seen on the way here and continued to see now.

“Was that edible?”

One of the rabbits found its roots and began chewing on them.

Compared to the part spread across the ground, the roots underground seemed concentrated into a single strand, so they quickly diminished.

When the other rabbits realized one of them was eating something, they crowded around and devoured it too. In less than two minutes, an entire root was gone.

Then the thorn bush aboveground shrank in an instant and became like dried bracken.

Its sharp thorns remained, but the broad triangular shape, like shark teeth, had become thin like rose thorns.

‘It died?’

He could tell for certain.

The dried-up thing vanished completely, leaving something behind on the ground.

“So this was a Mob too.”

He had thought it was just a plant.

If it were an ordinary plant, its form should have remained after being cut down, like a tree. But if it vanished and dropped an item, that meant it was a Mob.

‘Some kind of plant monster?’

The dropped item was a white root vegetable with all its thin roots removed. It looked somewhat like a balloon flower root.

The upper part also seemed cut away, making it difficult to identify just by looking at it.

‘It’s thick... It looks more like a pure white carrot than a balloon flower root. Like a bleached, washed carrot.’

It did not seem possible, but that was what it looked like.

Just in case, he took a bite and chewed. Then he frowned and spat it out beside him.

Normally, he would swallow almost anything, but this was beyond that.

A salty, fishy flavor and smell filled his mouth. Even with his senses dulled, he nearly threw up.

‘How do they eat this?’

Rabbits had noses too.

Could they not smell it?

‘Still, it can be used as feed.’

If it were poisonous, he would have had to eat it for training at least, but it did not contain anything like that.

‘If it had good nutritional value, I could process it into powder and somehow remove the smell, but I don’t want to go that far.’

It was not as if he lacked food, so he decided to treat it as rabbit feed for now.

‘Don’t other items drop?’

There was no need to give the rabbits additional instructions to dig those up as well.

This had happened because they had dug up and eaten the roots on their own, despite him never telling them to.

‘They’ll eat them again if they find more.’

But the rabbits were not unable to smell the roots.

He soon learned that they had gone toward them because the smell had been there from the start.

‘Does it smell good to rabbits?’

The smell was strong enough to spread underground.

Setting aside whether that was even possible, another thought came to him.

‘At this rate, I could release a large number of rabbits.’

The tamed rabbits he had gathered in Subspace.

What if he released the ones that only existed as taming items while inactive and raised them here?

‘This probably won’t be finished in one day.’

So he activated the rabbits in Subspace and fed them experience until they reached Level 10.

He did not evolve them.

He did not have enough Keys to evolve dozens of them, and even if he did, using them all that way did not seem right.

“Alright. Go in.”

Perhaps because their levels and evolution stages were low, it felt like his instructions did not get through properly.

Still, once he released them into the tunnel Shovel Nos. 1 through 3 had dug, they began moving on their own.

‘Wow.’

Watching the scene from above was quite an amazing experience.

With pets, even if something blocked them from view, their outlines appeared in a solid color.

The rabbits underground were doing exactly that.

Some spread through the tunnels that had already been dug, while others carved out new paths.

‘Oh.’

Before long, the thorn bushes closest to him began drying up.

“Please take care of it.”

“Your orders are enough.”

Companion No. 1 emerged from Subspace and quickly moved around, collecting the dropped items.

The root vegetable he had picked up earlier seemed to be the basic drop. Other things, such as thorn bush seeds and stems, dropped as items too.

‘They probably won’t be worth much.’

At least one white carrot-like root dropped every time.

Sometimes, as many as five dropped at once.

‘The average is probably around three.’

Getting only one at first had been unusually low.

Their sizes varied too. The small ones were only about two fingers thick, while the large ones were nearly as big as a forearm.

‘These stack.’

So he used a large one as the reference and stacked it in his Inventory. The smaller ones added to it, increasing the number.

‘This is what I like about the game system.’

Then he discovered something new.

More precisely, some rabbits underground had placed it in their Inventory along with the stones they were carrying.

It resembled other stones, but there was something different about it.

‘For one thing, it doesn’t stack in the same slot.’

The rabbits’ basic Inventory had one slot.

Only after evolving into Large Rabbits did they get two.

He had wondered why they did not pick it up despite there being stones nearby. But after he cleared the Inventory of a rabbit close by, it picked it up.

Seo Hajin took it out.

He nearly dropped it from Juggernaut’s hand.

“It’s hot?”

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