WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 55: 055
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[Fuck, I made it.]
-? What are you talking about?
-Huh? Isn’t this the guy who used to stir shit up? What was it again? The clan that was the first to meet the conditions and return.
ㄴThe First Clan?
ㄴYeah, them. He must be one of them.
At first, people wondered whether one of them had stayed behind instead of returning.
Most people thought so.
But after seeing the posts that followed, no one thought that anymore.
It was because of the photos and videos attached to the posts from that user.
They were clearly scenes that could not have been filmed in this world.
-What is that?
-That’s Seoul?
It was hard to believe even while looking at it.
It was too different from how it had been before they came here.
No.
Some people nodded instead.
It was just as they had expected.
A ruined city center.
Broken roads and collapsed buildings.
Tired, filthy-looking people moving between them.
-What happened?
-Weren’t there dozens of people in The First Clan? Why is he alone?
There were many questions.
There had to be.
The user in question kept uploading posts.
Some were disorganized, and some included words that made the poster seem far from mentally sound.
Still, there was no shortage of information to be found between them. More people silently watched than cursed or complained.
Seo Hajin was one of them.
He was studying a photo labeled as the Han River.
“...”
The Han River he remembered had not been small.
But compared to the river in the photo, it was small enough to be called a provincial stream.
What stood on either side was not a line of dazzling buildings, but dense forest that looked almost like a jungle and yellow-brown earth.
And creatures familiar to users in this Area wandered around there.
‘Why are there Crocodiles in the Han River?’
There did not seem to be many.
Even counting everything caught in the photo, there were only around twenty.
They were spread far apart, which made them look even fewer.
But there was no way to know how many more lurked beneath the surface. Perhaps that was why there was not a single person near the riverbank.
Apocalypse.
Someone had used the word in a comment.
The person posting said the world had not been completely destroyed.
Only some areas had problems.
But people had clearly died.
It was especially telling that there had been no news from most of the other clan members who had returned with him.
‘They don’t all return to the same place.’
Returning together did not mean returning to the same point. It seemed each person returned to wherever they had been before coming here.
The problem was if that place no longer existed.
For example, what if someone who had come here from the upper floors of an apartment building returned, only to find those coordinates hanging in empty air?
They would fall straight down.
‘Mine isn’t that bad.’
There was also information that caught his attention.
Whether they could continue using their current bodies, their Avatars, after returning.
The poster replied that it was half and half when asked whether Avatars could still be used after returning.
‘Does that mean you return in Avatar form first, then go back to your original body after a certain amount of time?’
The duration was determined by the Avatar’s level.
The number obtained by dividing the level by ten was applied directly as hours.
For example, a Level 30 Avatar could be maintained for up to three hours. Over there, they seemed to call it transformation or Avatar Manifestation.
‘There are definitely more Awakeners.’
The poster said they did not know whether everyone had gone through similar test regions. By the time they returned, the world had already become like that, and Awakeners were everywhere.
However, the Awakeners there differed from those who had returned from test regions like him.
‘Different?’
They did not have Avatars.
Naturally, they had no concept of Avatar Manifestation either.
They used the system’s abilities and various benefits through their original bodies.
The poster said they did not know which was better.
Ordinary Awakeners seemed to be in a constant state of Avatar Manifestation all day, but their physical abilities did not seem to grow as much even as their levels rose.
-I haven’t compared them properly. That’s just how it felt to me. I’ve actually met and killed an Awakener before.
Murder.
The poster mentioned it as though it were nothing.
This was not a place where they could restart after dying, yet he had ended someone’s life in the real world.
The fact that he had not been arrested for it also proved that the world back home was no longer functioning properly.
Of course, he claimed it had been self-defense.
There was no way to know what had really happened.
‘I had expected it.’
Whether the world had changed or not.
Seo Hajin had thought that the people here might not adapt properly after returning.
They might be able to imitate an ordinary daily life.
But having grown accustomed to death, they could end up in a state similar to combat veterans.
‘They could develop PTSD.’
Of course, not him.
That much, he could be certain of.
He had never become that immersed in the first place.
‘This is a little unclear.’
Still, there was something he was curious about.
He had multiple Avatars.
He did not know whether each duration would apply separately or whether they would all be combined.
‘If it’s similar to the time limit in Subspace, it would probably be combined.’
Yet it somehow felt possible that each Avatar could have its own separate duration.
If so, that would be good news for him.
He had six Level 50 Avatars.
If he alternated Avatar Manifestation between them, he could easily exceed twenty-four hours.
[And look at this.]
At that moment, a new post appeared.
It was a photo looking up at the sky above the city.
There was something strange in it.
-What is that?
-It looks like a tower.
ㄴWhy is a tower in the sky?
ㄴHow would I know?
Like a massive structure seen as a distant mirage, it floated in the sky in a translucent form.
It felt too alien to call it a building.
Yet it did not look naturally formed either.
The lower and upper sections were each divided into several floors, and every floor differed in texture and appearance.
-But where’s the first floor?
ㄴIsn’t the very bottom the first floor?
ㄴIt’s upside down.
ㄴHmm.
The bottom of the photo.
It was difficult to call the part closest to the ground the first floor.
Rather than the bottom of a building, it looked like they were viewing a rooftop from below.
Still, one thing was clear.
The scenery of that floor in the photo resembled the test region they were currently in.
Forests and mountains.
A broad stretch of water that looked like a lake, with thick and narrow waterways extending in every direction.
They could not make out what lived within it, but they could at least confirm the rough terrain and scenery.
Yet with the tower’s blurry, mirage-like form and the question of what had happened to Earth and Korea, it was difficult to guess anything.
‘It isn’t some kind of optical illusion?’
The poster had written something alongside the photo.
The strange scene wavering in the sky was not merely visible.
Awakeners could actually enter that tower through the system.
And if they failed to clear the lowest floor in the photo, part of that floor would descend to the ground and attach itself at regular intervals.
[You saw the other photos I uploaded, right?]
You idiots who said it was a greenbelt.
The land that was there broke off and got added below. I heard it had already happened five times or so by the time I returned.
-Why don’t people clear it?
ㄴYeah, if it’s like this place, it shouldn’t be that hard.
ㄴ(Poster)This was a test region.
ㄴWhat’s the difference?
ㄴ(Poster)The real tower doesn’t have restarts.
ㄴAh.
That changed things.
It was not a place where they could run wild as though they had multiple lives. If there was even a little danger, they had no choice but to be cautious.
Even so, it was strange that the tower had not been properly cleared after so much time had passed over there.
The poster happened to talk about that too.
Different towers were connected to different countries, and Korea’s tower seemed to be deliberately neglected because it was comparatively less dangerous.
-There are other towers too?
ㄴ(Poster)Those weird items you get there... You know, the ones that come out of boxes. They come from other towers.
ㄴThat explains it.
The poster also uploaded miscellaneous posts in a scattered manner. Most of them were boastful, but Seo Hajin could glimpse the tension and fear the poster was carrying between the lines.
‘The situation seems worse than he’s saying.’
For one thing, there was no mention of The First Clan, which had supposedly returned together.
Even if everyone had returned to where they originally were, Korea was not large. They should have been able to gather again somehow.
Yet there was no mention of it at all.
‘Some may have had accidents because of their return points...’
But they might have become caught up in other incidents as well.
If the tower’s lower floors and everything belonging to them had been added to the surface, it would not be strange for wild beasts or monsters to roam around.
‘And test-region Awakeners have a limited Avatar Manifestation time.’
Once Avatar Manifestation ended, they would be no different from ordinary people.
Naturally, that would make them vulnerable.
Users continued asking questions.
But the poster only kept saying whatever he wanted.
-Enough, asshole. We’ll be leaving too.
Some people were dissatisfied with that attitude and left malicious comments, but more people wanted to satisfy their curiosity by returning themselves.
In fact, raid completion notifications had appeared more frequently than before ever since the returnee’s posts went up.
But today.
Once information about the tower and other new details came out, the periodic raid notifications abruptly stopped.
The reason was clear.
After learning about Avatar Manifestation and the time limit based on Avatar level, people changed their approach. Instead of pushing themselves to return early, they chose to raise their levels even one more time.
But breaking through levels locked at every ten levels required a Key.
The only guaranteed way to obtain one was by hunting a Field Boss.
The raid notifications, which had paused briefly, began appearing again. Opinions about it clashed fiercely across every board.
[Condition 1 has been fulfilled.]
[The applicable users may leave this place at any time and return to where they originally were.]
A few days ago, someone had commented that they were almost done.
That had been true.
Other than the lack of the first-achievement notice they had seen with The First Clan, the rest was the same.
-Take care, everyone.
ㄴYou’re leaving without raising your level more?
ㄴWe’re already stuck and can’t break through anyway.
ㄴWhat level?
ㄴ40.
ㄴOof, then that’s tough.
ㄴI can’t even break through 30. Where do you get a Key?
ㄴWe funneled Keys to our main tank and damage dealers. Then we gathered and opened boxes while Pull Hunting. But be careful, unless you’re with people you really trust, they might take the loot and run.
ㄴOkay.
Those who left this time were not an official Clan.
They said they were a large party formed by people who shared the same goals.
They had more members than The First Clan.
Nearly a hundred people.
Maybe because of that, one section of the Giant Lake Field settlement had become completely empty after they left.
‘More and more people are leaving.’
A few more days passed.
Besides the only returnee who had only uploaded bragging posts and pointless nonsense, new returnees began appearing on social media one after another.
They said the existing returnee had not explained how to link accounts, so they had struggled.
They properly explained what test-region users had wanted to know.
Just as Seo Hajin had expected, the information was grim.
The government was no longer functioning properly.
It was barely maintaining a semblance of order through regional strongholds.
Some cities had been abandoned after all their residents left.
Others had problems because too many refugees had gathered there.
As someone had said, it might not be a complete apocalypse yet.
But if things continued like this, it could become one.
-And the bastard from before didn’t explain this properly, but test-region Awakeners like us don’t have an Avatar Manifestation time limit when we enter the tower here either.
ㄴFor real?
ㄴInside the tower, Avatars can stay active permanently. And if you establish a proper stronghold, you can live there like the camps here.
ㄴApparently, some Clans built Awakener camps on the tower’s first floor and only bring necessities in from outside.
ㄴYeah, that’s right.
As the number of returnees grew, they started sharing what they knew and cross-checking one another’s information.
One fact became clear as a result.
The first returnee had been a coward who had never even entered the tower over there.
Still, later returnees did not know where the rest of The First Clan had gone either.
They might have entered the real tower’s first floor, but it was equally possible that they had not.
-Then there’s no need to raise our levels that much.
ㄴMore precisely, that’s true if you plan to stay inside the tower. If you live somewhere dangerous outside, higher is probably better.
ㄴBut I don’t think we need to keep holding out just for that. The world is a little weird after coming back, but if anything happens, we can run into the tower.
ㄴHow do you enter the tower?
ㄴYou can enter through the system.
ㄴAnytime?
ㄴYeah, anytime.
ㄴNice.
They said the creatures inhabiting the first floor of Korea’s tower were almost the same as the ones here.
That made it easier to understand why this place was called a test region.
Moreover, the real tower’s first floor had a lower Field Level than the test region.
People said it was relatively less dangerous.
-Then there’s no reason not to go.
ㄴExactly.
People once again began trying to fulfill the raid conditions and leave early.
Accordingly, the level of each field began rising as well.
But the pace was slower than before.
The Field Levels had already become quite high, making the bosses far stronger than they had been at the beginning.
That was how the Alliance came to be formed.
Multiple Clans and large parties began joining forces for raids.
Raids that had once involved dozens of people now mobilized hundreds.
The completion notifications that had nearly stopped began appearing once more.
Hundreds of people did not simply rush in at random.
High-level users who had been given Keys drew the boss’s attention at the front while ranged attacks poured in from behind.
They even chained together the binding and slowing skills each person had acquired.
Even so, several people died every time something went wrong.
It was close to overwhelming through sheer numbers an enemy that would have been troublesome even for Juggernaut to fight alone.
* * *
“Good work!”
“Ugh. I’m exhausted.”
Another raid had ended.
Dozens had died, but they had succeeded in the end.
The survivors were extremely busy.
Some gathered the Personal Effects of the dead according to their respective groups and waited for their return.
Elsewhere, people sorted and distributed the spoils gained this time.
But even amid all that, some people had other ambitions.
With this many people gathered, it was natural for Villains to be mixed in.
Quiet talk began spreading among them.
“Juggernaut?”
“Don’t you think we could do it with this many people?”
“Hmm.”
They claimed that if they led the current raid Alliance north, they could easily crush even that so-called Juggernaut Legion.
But not many people fell for their encouragement and agitation.
People remembered the stories related to Juggernaut.
What had happened in the northern forest in the past.
And what he had done after leaving the northern forest and circling through every field.
“The number of Villains who died back then was probably higher than us now.”
“No, everyone’s levels were similar back then.”
“That’s true. We’re all at least Level 30 now.”
“You think Juggernaut has been sitting around?”
“Right. He must have raised his level in the meantime.”
“And I heard there are a ridiculous number of Wolf pets wandering around there lately.”
“Come on. Even if there are a lot, there can’t be hundreds, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m not interested. What about you guys?”
One party leader looked around and asked.
The other party members shook their heads with similar expressions.
The agitators sounded people out one by one.
But most reactions were the same.
At one point, the agitators nearly got themselves killed.
The users from the Logger Forest drew their weapons the moment they heard the talk.
“This bastard was a Villain.”
“Yeah. Who do you think saved us?”
“Die, asshole!”
The users from the Logger Forest.
Many of them had once been captured by Villain Clans, used like slaves, and abused.
To them, Juggernaut and his companions were practically lifesavers.
Even if they did not feel that strongly, most at least held gratitude toward them.
In the end, the agitators failed to achieve their goal.
They had not even gathered a hundred people.
Once they counted their numbers, their confidence shrank as well.
Trying to provoke the Juggernaut Legion with that many people did not add up.
“Then let’s plan for next time.”
“Right. You all use social media, don’t you?”
They used the linking feature that nearly everyone now used.
They added one another as friends and created a separate group chat.
If they increased their numbers here, they could create a raid Alliance among people with similar inclinations.
While they were at it, they might be able to attempt a raid on the Juggernaut Legion too.
But there was one thing they failed to consider.
Just as Villains had mixed into the raid Alliance, troublemakers with other goals could slip into the group chat they had created.
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