WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 69
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There had not been a cave there from the beginning.
At the end of the mountain range, on a cliff so high and steep that Mobs could not climb it.
When they first found it, there had only been a crack in the rock wide enough for two people to sit and rest. They swung pickaxes there, scraped at it with blades, and even used Skills to dig into the rock.
That was how the cave was made.
The two of them lived there together.
But no matter how close they were, it was not easy to spend all day facing each other in a cramped cave. Washing and sleeping were problems too, and every man sometimes wanted to be alone in peace and quiet.
In the end, they worked together again and dug another cave a short distance away.
A deep ravine lay between the two caves.
It was roughly two meters across. It had been frightening when they first arrived, but now they crossed it with an easy jump.
“Shall we get going?”
The man put the stones piled in the back of the cave into his Inventory.
They were hard, heavy rocks he had broken into sizes suitable for hunting.
They were too heavy to carry around all the time, so he kept them stacked there and only put them away when needed. Naturally, he was overloaded.
By now, he had more or less grown used to the sensation of his body, hands, and feet becoming heavy.
“Everyone should be gathered there.”
After leaving the cave, he headed toward the edge of the cliff with familiar steps, then abruptly crouched down.
A tiny dot in the distant sky.
“An Eagle.”
Some occasionally passed nearby.
If he was lucky, they would continue on. If not, they would notice him and fly straight toward him.
The Mobs swarming beneath the cliff could not climb up here, but Eagles were different. If one came this way, he would have to hide deep inside the narrow cave and endure for days.
He had tried hunting one before.
He had levels and combat experience, so it was not completely impossible.
But this was not a wide, open plain like below. He had learned firsthand just how difficult it was to fight an Eagle in such a confined space.
He had never tried again after that.
If he simply endured inside the cave, the Eagle would eventually notice someone farther away with a higher Aggro Level and fly off after them. That was how it had been until now.
“Just go away.”
Still crouched, he muttered quietly.
It was only a dot for now, but if it headed this way, it would grow larger in an instant.
The dot was indeed getting a little bigger. He had half turned toward the cave when he suddenly stopped.
“Oh.”
Fortunately, the Eagle changed direction and flew away.
It appeared to be heading farther east.
“Someone over there must be...”
There was probably a user with a higher Aggro Level in that direction.
It had not been officially confirmed, but that was what users called the criterion Mobs used to choose who to pursue.
How many Mobs someone had killed.
How long they had hunted.
Those things accumulated, and Mobs gathered around the nearby user with the highest number.
At first, it had merely been one theory among many. As time passed, it became almost accepted fact.
There had also been a theory that dying reset it, but that was quickly disproven.
One prominent user had died repeatedly over several days.
Each time they restarted, Mobs continued chasing them. They had apparently lost more than half the Inventory they had worked so hard to expand, along with everything inside it.
‘Still, it’s a good thing I took shelter before it was too late.’
Once he confirmed the Eagle was completely gone, the man started toward the cliff edge again, then stopped when his stomach growled.
“Right. I haven’t eaten anything today.”
He sat in a shallow hollow where he usually ate. Then he took out a chunk of meat from the corner of his Inventory, along with branches he had gathered beforehand.
The fire caught quickly.
He placed the meat on a flat stone slab.
Today’s meal was grilled Mountain Goat Meat.
Only a few months ago, he had forced himself to eat grilled Wolf Meat. It was tough and smelled awful, but he had no choice if he did not want to starve.
Now, things were different.
All kinds of meat had appeared on the marketplace, including Mountain Goat, Snake, Wild Boar, and Bear meat.
They were sold by Juggernaut, the “King of the North.”
Eagle meat appeared occasionally too, but it was even worse than Wolf Meat when eaten plain.
It was tough, and its fishy smell mixed with a rank animal odor. Unless one was fairly hungry, it was hard to make oneself eat it.
But users with the Cooking Skill made it reasonably edible.
They removed the smell, tenderized it, and added seasoning. People said it did not taste all that different from chicken.
That was why quite a few users now bought meat from Juggernaut, cooked it, and listed the finished dishes on the marketplace again.
They cost more than cooking it themselves, but some people bought them anyway.
Rather than chewing flavorless meat every day, they would spend some Points once in a while to treat themselves.
The man did not buy such dishes.
‘There’s no telling when this will end.’
It did not seem like the current situation would be resolved anytime soon. It might even grow worse, so he was saving as many Points as possible.
Fortunately, the ingredients Juggernaut listed imposed almost no financial burden.
Processed products like ramen and shakes cost a little more, but they were cheap considering how difficult they were to make yourself.
The animal meat, hides, bones, sinew, and other byproducts he bought were almost free.
Clean water was the same.
The items were so cheap that the only real cost was the basic marketplace fee.
Things had been different when the Wave first began.
Food, hides, and Firewood vanished in an instant.
Even every listing that had been built up before then sold out, and there had been times when nothing remained on the marketplace at all.
Some people still listed goods consistently through all that, but perhaps they were too busy struggling for their own survival. One by one, they eventually disappeared.
But there was one supplier who had remained from then until now.
Juggernaut.
At first, it had been Wolf Meat.
Then Wolf Pelts and lumber.
The variety gradually increased, and so did the quantities.
Fat flowed onto the stone slab as the meat cooked. Before cutting off a properly cooked portion and putting it into his mouth, the man lowered his head toward the distant north.
“Lord Juggernaut, thank you for giving us our daily bread today as well.”
It was half a joke.
But he really was grateful.
If Juggernaut had not listed goods on the marketplace, he would have either starved to death already or spent nearly all the Points he had gathered so far.
Everyone knew Juggernaut was not selling those things just to make money.
If he had wanted money, he would have listed them at higher prices than this.
‘People would still have bought them.’
But instead of throwing away the surplus meat because it was bothersome, he faithfully listed it on the marketplace. That allowed people like him, hiding in remote places and enduring day by day, to stay alive.
‘My Points have actually increased.’
After finishing his meal, the man took a few sips of a shake mixed with water. He had added plenty of water to save powder, so it was rather thin, but it still filled his stomach.
He looked up at the sky.
There were no Eagles, but he checked in several directions before finally approaching the edge of the cliff.
As expected, Mobs filled the ground far below.
Wolves, Feral Dogs, Bears, and Wild Boars.
Snakes were mixed among them as well, swarming everywhere.
Some fought each other with growls, but most stared up at him on the cliff.
“So what?”
They could not climb up.
Whenever they clawed at the cliff or tried to leap up it, only dirt and pebbles slid down beneath them.
“Yeah. Stay right there.”
The man took a rock from his Inventory.
Then, carefully, he dropped it over the edge.
Thud!
The rock struck a jutting part of the cliff and changed direction, but it still fell onto the Mobs gathered below.
A brief cry rang out amid the dull sounds of bones breaking, then stopped.
Even so, they remained there, and he dropped the heavy rocks he had brought one after another.
“Got a decent haul today.”
It seemed he had killed a few.
That was not bad. Some days, he did not hit anything at all, or the things he hit did not die.
“It’s a shame I can’t pick up the drops, but at least I get Points.”
The byproducts dropped by the dead Mobs would disappear on their own with time.
He was not going down to retrieve them just because it was wasteful. Getting up here in the first place had been almost entirely luck. He did not think he could climb back up if he went down.
“Maybe today’s a good day.”
After returning to the cave, he took more rocks from the pile and dropped them off the cliff again.
He did that two or three times a day. Until sunset, he returned to the cave and mined rocks.
When resting, or when he had spare time, he opened the system window and browsed SNS.
He looked at posts and videos uploaded by other users. If even that grew boring, he visited the neighboring cave.
Today was one of those days.
He sent a message beforehand, and the other person seemed bored too, so he jumped across the ravine.
“I’m here.”
“Yeah. Catch anything today?”
“A little.”
A brief greeting.
Then he sat across from them.
A janggi board sat between them.
The neighbor had made it by hand.
The board was slightly crooked, and its maker had carved Hangul onto the pieces because they did not know all the Chinese characters. Still, there was no problem playing with it.
Some users made things like that themselves, while others put them up for sale on the marketplace.
Janggi was common.
There were Go boards and stones, hwatu cards, and playing cards. Someone had even made a mahjong table and tiles.
There were also people who made chessboards and pieces well.
They carved them with enough precision that people said they could be used as decorations, but fewer people than expected knew how to play chess.
Even so, more people were trying to learn.
That only meant there were that many people with nothing to do.
“Check.”
“Huh?”
“Why’d you move your rook there earlier?”
“Oh.”
They could no longer ride sleds across snow or wander frozen lakes like they had the previous winter, but people were creating their own ways to entertain themselves according to the current situation.
It was their own effort to somehow build an ordinary life amid difficult days.
And so, another season changed.
Summer passed, and the trees visible in the distance gradually turned yellow.
As the morning and night air began to grow cold, the man checked the marketplace more often.
“Okay. It’s up.”
Wolf Fur Hide.
After buying as much as he needed, he hesitated briefly before adding a Bear Pelt as well.
It was a little more expensive than Wolf Pelts, which were almost free, but the price might rise as winter drew closer if he did not buy it now.
An Item Box sat in the back of the cave.
It had been so expensive that he could only afford one. It was filled with well-dried Firewood.
Of course, that alone would not be enough to get through the winter comfortably.
If the marketplace could no longer be stocked as abundantly as it was now, he would need to save as much Firewood as possible.
“I hope Lord Juggernaut keeps selling through winter too.”
That was why he had bought the fur hides.
If he blocked the cave walls and entrance as much as possible, then wrapped himself up to keep heat from escaping, he could somehow endure with less Firewood.
He would have been anxious even after preparing like this during the previous winter.
But this time was a little different.
Juggernaut had sold goods throughout the last season.
Wolf Pelts were replenished faster than they were used up. Lumber and hides were the same.
Quite a few users who could not hunt properly depended on the goods he listed.
Maybe a thousand people.
Possibly more.
In truth, everyone had said it.
That Juggernaut would not last long either.
They said he seemed to hunt in shifts, but since his breaks were only an hour or two, it was probably because he had a limit on his stay duration.
They said he could not sleep properly like that, so his mind would break before his body did.
Some even said he had already gone insane.
Baseless, vicious criticism.
But now, after winter had passed, then spring, summer, and autumn, with another winter approaching, Juggernaut still had not stopped.
“He’s an amazing person.”
The man spread the purchased hide across the cave floor.
When he sat on the thick Bear Pelt laid over a wooden board, the chill rising from the ground noticeably lessened.
“You’re doing well. Let’s keep it up.”
That was how he prepared for the approaching winter.
Countless users spent similar days.
* * *
A brutal winter.
Then spring again.
Boom!
A casually swung club burst apart a Monster. Broken bones and chunks of flesh shot forward, sweeping through the Mobs following behind it.
Those that did not die in one blow collapsed with severe injuries. Other Mobs rushed over them, tangling together.
“...”
Juggernaut did not stop.
He simply took a step forward and swung his club again.
‘I think the club cracked. I should replace it later.’
A short distance away, Vulcan and Typhoon each blocked a different direction.
Wolves ran about farther away, finishing off the surviving Mobs, while Wolf Riders gathered the loot.
‘Is there a little more on the right?’
Watching the battlefield from above, Seo Hajin spotted the Mobs gathering on one side and sent a hunting team there.
‘There’s no end to them.’
Nothing had changed from the first day until now.
If anything, there were more.
It was not his imagination. He could tell just by looking at the loot they sorted periodically and the piles of boxes.
But the Mobs were not the only things that had changed.
His side was no longer the same either.
Crunch!
When Juggernaut slammed down his club, the ground caved in.
The Mob struck beneath it was too mangled to recognize.
‘There’s definitely a difference.’
Even at Level 60, most Mobs had been no match for him.
But now that he had passed Level 70 and reached Level 80, the difference was far greater.
It was not simply that his strength had increased mindlessly.
Even when making the same movement, he was faster and more precise.
His recovery speed, stamina, and the amount of time he could fight, all of it had changed.
The Mobs had grown stronger too.
Among the new creatures that appeared whenever the Field Level rose, there were some close in strength to former Bosses.
Still, their numbers had only increased somewhat.
The result did not change much.
‘Should I rotate out soon?’
Juggernaut still had stamina left.
But there was no need to use it all up. There were always replacements waiting in Subspace.
“Okay. Rotate.”
There was almost no gap in the fighting.
They had long since mastered the timing of rotations, and the wave of Monsters was blocked by a new Avatar.
“Whew.”
Having handed off the battle, Seo Hajin let out a long breath through Juggernaut’s body. He roughly brushed the blood and dirt from himself, then crossed the center of the Rest Area.
The space had become far larger than before.
A kitchen and bathroom had been added. The exercise equipment that had been in a corner of Subspace was moved into the Rest Area as well, allowing him to work out consistently without using up stay duration.
Now, even getting to the bathroom meant walking quite a distance across the center of the Rest Area, which could be called a living room.
If the Rest Area was that large, what about Subspace?
It had once been large enough to hold a large aircraft, but it had now expanded well beyond that.
‘At this point... it’s probably about the size of one of those small private airports in the American countryside.’
Was this really right?
Was it okay for it to become this big?
The thought arose naturally, but the system still did not stop him.
There was no notice saying it could no longer expand, nor any warning that there was a size limit.
‘It must not be a problem.’
Then there was no reason not to do it.
He needed to expand Subspace just to store the ever-increasing loot and materials.
Naturally, he also needed space to house and keep his Pets on standby in emergencies. Their numbers had already reached four digits.
‘Let’s not calculate how many Points have gone into this.’
Fortunately, the amount of Points he earned from hunting increased alongside the Points he poured into it.
His Points had once exceeded one million. They fell every time he expanded Subspace, then increased through hunting again. This had repeated countless times.
They rose and fell above one million, but gradually increased as time passed.
“Up we go.”
Juggernaut entered the expanded bathroom.
After washing off quickly, he climbed into a bathtub full of hot water and soaked himself deeply.
“Nice.”
The bathtub had been made to fit the Avatar’s large body.
The hot water slowly loosened his stiff muscles.
The battle continued outside.
Because he maintained several viewpoints at once, he could sense the other Avatars fighting even while in the bathtub.
It had felt quite strange and fascinating at first, but he had gradually become used to that multitasking sensation. It no longer felt particularly special.
‘Is this progress, or just adaptation?’
A lot had changed in the meantime.
Iron Wall, once the youngest, was already Level 70.
Vulcan and Stone, who had been with him from the beginning, along with Typhoon and Brown, and Steel, who had been added later, had all reached Level 70 as well.
Only Juggernaut was one step ahead at Level 80.
It had taken about a year to get there.
It was not because he lacked experience.
The wave of Monsters had never stopped, and experience had accumulated continuously.
The problem was, as always, Keys.
They hunted so many that an enormous number of boxes dropped, but most only spat out junk.
Metal fragments with unknown uses, broken devices, strange clothes, and ornaments.
Still, there were Keys among them.
As he gathered them one by one, he would eventually have a respectable amount.
‘If I had focused them all here, I might’ve reached Level 90, but that would still be inefficient.’
In the end, he made the same choice as before.
Rather than raising only one, he leveled them evenly.
And that did not apply only to Avatars.
His Pets had long since surpassed two thousand.
He distributed experience as evenly as possible, chose the ones he needed, used Keys on them, and evolved them.
There were now over one hundred Wolf Riders alone.
There were also fifty evolved Bear Beastkin.
The open-pit mine where the Bear Beastkin worked had become far wider and deeper than it had been in the beginning.
They had cleared away the rock covering the top and continued digging down along the exposed ore vein.
Iron Wall, the youngest, had never personally landed a finishing blow since its creation.
To tame Pets without interference, it needed to remain in a nonlethal state.
‘I thought another slot would open when I reached 80.’
But no new Avatar viewpoint had been added this time, so he still had seven, including Juggernaut.
‘And the experience keeps piling up.’
He had a fair number of Keys now too.
He used them to evolve Pets, but he did not waste them on creatures that did not need evolution.
Other people had apparently guessed that he had many Keys, because quite a few requests came asking him to sell them.
At first, they arrived through marketplace messages.
When he did not answer, some sent SNS messages or even made public posts.
There were people who said they would pay any price he wanted.
People who asked to borrow just one.
People who tried to persuade him by saying that if they grew stronger, it would ultimately help everyone.
But he did not sell a single Key.
‘Who do they think they are?’
He did not lack Points at all.
He ignored them for another reason.
Honestly, he just did not like them.
Not one of those people had ever helped Seo Hajin, or Juggernaut. That had been true after the Wave began and before it as well.
Some had even looked down on him, saying he would be swept away by the Wave too. It was unpleasant to see them completely change their attitude now, as though he would not remember their names.
‘It’s a barbarian warrior concept. It’s not like I became an actual barbarian.’
It would have been different if people he knew normally, people he was close with, asked him politely.
He might have sold them a few.
No. Since he had so many now, he might have simply given them away.
But neither the D-Day Clan nor Hogu and Miyu-chan had ever asked him to sell Keys.
“They’re good people.”
It was not exactly in return, but he made sure to provide what they needed first.
He delivered lumber to the D-Day Clan so they could repair their base facilities and prepare for winter. Around Hogu and Miyu-chan’s home, he placed logs and rocks to make a fence.
That twisted the Monsters’ paths and reduced the number that could approach, helping them avoid being directly caught in the wave.
Of course, they did not only receive.
Whenever one of his Avatars or Pets passed nearby, they regularly handed over items.
Fish caught from the river.
Vegetables and fruit grown in their garden.
Ingredients that were difficult for him to obtain personally.
Thanks to that, his meals had become more varied than before.
‘Still...’
Through Juggernaut’s eyes, with his head resting against the edge of the bathtub, he checked SNS.
He checked it whenever he rested.
At first, he had only wanted news from outside. But along the way, he learned part of why the place he was in had become like this.
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