WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: DereKimchi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist Doesn't Want to Leave the First Floor ◈
Chapter 71
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[What’s this?]
Anyone else get an additional mission? Are you going to accept it?
A month is kind of long.
-Additional mission?
ㄴWhat are you talking about?
ㄴI didn’t get anything like that.
ㄴAccept what?
-Who posted this?
ㄴI think they were someone well-known.
ㄴThey deleted the post.
ㄴDidn’t anyone take a screenshot?
The post disappeared quickly.
But many people had already seen it.
Some had saved its contents.
Soon, an image of the post appeared.
[External Variable Elimination Mission]
Remain in the Test Area and eliminate external variables. If you participate, you will receive the following benefits.
Experience gained while participating in the mission increased by 50%.
Points gained while participating in the mission increased by 50%.
Among box rewards you personally obtained in the past, eligible items may be registered in the System Supply List.
Registered items may be purchased with Points.
Mission participation period: 720 hours.
If you choose to participate, you cannot return during that period. After the mission period ends, you may choose to extend your stay or return.
It was not a long post.
But it was enough to set SNS buzzing.
[Who gets this?]
-I didn’t get it.
ㄴMe neither.
ㄴDon’t you have to fill your stay time first?
ㄴI did that today, but I only got the option to return.
-I heard the person who posted that was well-known. Maybe only people with high Aggro Levels get it?
ㄴOr maybe it’s people who killed a lot during the wave.
ㄴThen Juggernaut definitely got it.
-1.5 times EXP and Points is tempting.
ㄴYou can’t go back?
ㄴ720 hours is a month, but I think I’d be fine staying that long.
ㄴYeah, same. It’d be better to earn more Points before leaving. I hear there are quite a few things to spend Points on outside.
ㄴYou can earn Points outside too.
ㄴStill, just in case.
ㄴIt’s like extending your military service.
ㄴWhy does someone keep comparing everything to the military?
-But what’s the Supply List?
ㄴI think it lets you buy stuff you got from boxes directly with Points.
ㄴWould Keys work too?
ㄴNo idea.
ㄴThe person we could ask deleted their post and ran.
ㄴBut unless you accepted it, there’s probably no way to find out anyway.
It seemed the user who had made the first post did not realize it was a special option that had appeared only for them.
They had likely tried to exchange information with other users, then deleted the post as soon as they saw the replies.
But the rumor had already spread.
No one knew exactly who received the offer.
High levels.
Many hunting records.
Accumulated Aggro Levels.
Various other theories emerged.
Still, one thing was certain. Most people who came forward saying they had received the same offer were widely known users.
“Hmm.”
Seo Hajin had seen the same thing.
Even before it was shared on SNS, he had received a similar system message.
[Your total stay has exceeded 20,000 hours.]
[You have met the conditions for return.]
[You may end the Test Area whenever you wish and return to where you were before.]
The notification that he had fulfilled the conditions.
Then another message followed beneath it.
[Your contribution to stabilizing the Test Area has exceeded the threshold.]
[You have obtained eligibility to participate in an additional mission.]
After that came the same contents being shared on SNS.
But there was more that had not been shared there.
For instance, if he wanted to buy an item directly from the System, he needed to register it first, and he could not register anything he had not personally obtained.
And even for items he had personally obtained, he could not buy them unless he registered them. Registering a single item cost 300,000 Points.
“Hmm.”
It was an unexpected option.
But it was an option that could justify why he was still here despite fulfilling the return conditions.
“Even though I never said it out loud, it came true.”
He had not stocked enough Nanobot Treatment.
Not only was he short of one hundred, he had not even reached ninety yet.
He had considered that he might get genuinely unlucky, but he had not expected it to really happen.
Yet seeing the current message, he felt as though the System had deliberately steered things this way.
Perhaps it had kept track of what he needed and what he normally stockpiled, then used that as bait to make him extend his stay.
‘I was planning to stay longer anyway.’
He had thought everyone would simply be sent out once they fulfilled the conditions, but that was not the case. For now, he intended to gather more treatment.
But if it continued not to appear, he had planned to consider just how much longer he should stay.
“External variable elimination...”
It probably meant he should kill monsters.
Nothing would really change. He was still wiping out monsters without rest.
What would change was the reward.
For one thing, his experience and Points would increase by 50%.
For someone who hunted as much as he did, that would not be an insignificant difference.
But what caught his eye even more was the benefit of registering and directly purchasing items.
“So I can buy things I got from boxes.”
He selected the function.
Then he was slightly surprised.
“It works?”
He had not accepted the additional mission.
Yet the function opened anyway.
But after fiddling with it a little, he realized only the page had opened. It did not actually function.
“So they’re letting me look at it.”
The page was simple.
[There are no registered supplies.]
[Select an item eligible for registration.]
A list of registration candidates appeared afterward.
As he scanned through it, he saw the things he had obtained from boxes so far.
Broken machine parts and strange ornaments.
Medicine and clothing whose uses he did not know.
There were consumables he had used once and thrown away, as well as items shoved into some corner of Subspace that he had forgotten even existed.
But not everything he had obtained could be registered.
“For now... I don’t see Keys.”
Perhaps that was only natural.
Part of him thought it would be better to add them, even if they were somewhat expensive, but all he could do was feel disappointed.
There were no Skills, either.
There were pet-taming items at least, but those appeared fairly often.
‘Then what is there?’
He scanned through the familiar items before finally noticing there was a search function.
“Nanobot... Treatment. Would that work?”
He searched for what he needed immediately.
The item list quickly scrolled down before stopping in one place.
“It’s here.”
[Nanobot Treatment]
[Eligible for registration]
[Registration cost: 300,000 Points]
[Purchase price after registration: 100,000 Points]
“That’s expensive.”
It cost 300,000 just to register it.
Then he needed another 100,000 to buy one.
Buying the first one would cost a total of 400,000 Points.
That was roughly four billion won in cash.
Rather than simply thinking it was expensive, he instead realized how enormous the one million Points required for early return had been.
“I would’ve been paying ten billion won to leave.”
More precisely, it would have been a little over ten billion.
According to information from someone from his hometown he had seen recently, one Point was worth a little over ten thousand won.
“Hmm.”
He checked his Point balance.
He had well over one million, but he did not feel as if that had made him rich.
‘It is expensive. But it’s also true that it barely comes out of boxes.’
He opened countless boxes every day.
Even so, there were times when none appeared for days, even weeks.
‘At least this removes the uncertainty.’
If he had Points, he could buy it.
And he could earn Points by hunting.
Furthermore, if he participated in the additional mission, he would receive 1.5 times as much.
‘And the registration fee is only the first time.’
Once he registered it, he would only need to pay 100,000 Points per unit afterward. In the long run, it was not bad.
‘Hmm. Still, first...’
Seo Hajin searched for another item.
[Arc Recycler]
[Eligible for registration]
[Registration cost: 300,000 Points]
[Purchase price after registration: 300,000 Points]
“This works too.”
He had thought it would be nice to have just one more.
It was a device that dismantled and recycled the miscellaneous junk constantly piling up in Subspace.
One was running without rest, but it was not enough to process everything coming in.
Yet perhaps it had been exceptionally rare from the start, because he had not seen another since the first one.
“The registration fee is the same, and it costs as much as three treatments.”
Registering a new device and buying one would cost 600,000 Points. Roughly six billion won in cash.
‘I keep calculating it in cash.’
He searched for another name.
[Arc Sustainer]
[Eligible for registration]
[Registration cost: 300,000 Points]
[Purchase price after registration: 120,000 Points]
It was a device that produced various foods, including ramen.
Another one would also greatly increase food production.
But Seo Hajin shook his head.
“This one isn’t that urgent.”
It might have been different before he fulfilled his stay period, but now users were rapidly leaving, and demand for ramen was dropping accordingly.
Eventually, they might have more than they needed.
There was no need to add another one right away.
“Still, if I had to pick the three most useful things right now, it’d be these... but the registration fees alone are 900,000.”
If registration did not cost anything, he would naturally have registered every eligible item.
But 300,000 Points per item was an amount that made even someone without caution become careful. He thought it over again and again.
‘Treatment is the top priority. That won’t change.’
The Arc Recycler was certainly useful.
But the current device was merely overworked. He had kept repairing it, and it was still functioning well.
The same went for the Sustainer.
Nanobot Treatment, on the other hand, could be directly connected to his remaining lifespan.
Seo Hajin glanced at his Point balance once more, then nodded slightly and opened the additional mission window again.
After accepting it, he brought up the registration window beneath it.
[Would you like to register Nanobot Treatment in the Supply List?]
[300,000 Points will be consumed.]
“Register.”
His Points decreased.
Then a new item appeared on the previously empty registered-item page.
[Nanobot Treatment]
[Purchase price: 100,000 Points]
[100,000 Points have been consumed.]
[You have purchased Nanobot Treatment.]
Deep inside Subspace, it appeared at the location he had designated beforehand.
Its size and weight were no different from the ones he had obtained from boxes.
“It really came out.”
He added the newly purchased one to the box where he had stored the treatments he had gathered.
Looking at them again, every treatment he had collected so far now seemed like it was worth 100,000 Points each.
“I bought some from the marketplace too.”
The most expensive one he had bought was probably 20,000 Points.
He had deliberated quite a bit at the time, but now it felt like he had bought them cheaply, which put him in a better mood.
‘Monsters will keep dropping them, right?’
Did he really need to spend 100,000 Points to buy them?
Still, he had an intuition that they would appear even less from now on.
‘If this is a game, the operators definitely adjusted the odds. Since I can buy them directly, they’ll lower the drop rate from monsters.’
Perhaps the fact that they had started appearing so rarely had been preparation for this.
‘If that’s true, it’s irritating. But it’s still better than not having this option.’
For now, he would not immediately spend all his Points to reach one hundred.
He needed to hunt for several days, perhaps over a week, and first check whether they continued to appear from boxes or not.
‘Hmm. Maybe I can gather more too.’
He had set one hundred as his basic goal, but if he earned Points well, perhaps he could buy more.
To begin with, he did not know for certain whether one hundred treatments would completely cure him.
He had only settled on that number as a rough estimate that it should be enough.
‘More is better.’
Even if he had some left after using them, he could sell them to others.
Back in his hometown, were there not wealthy people who would pay not one billion, but even more?
‘I should register the Recycler too.’
The one million Points he had been keeping for early return no longer meant anything, and he was now certain to remain for at least another month.
One month.
It was not that long.
He had already spent longer here.
“Let’s try another month first. If it’s all right, I’ll consider extending it too.”
[Mission time remaining: 719:57:31]
After checking the remaining time, he focused on his Avatars again.
While he had been handling various things, it had become time to switch shifts.
“I need more pets. A lot more.”
As more people returned, monsters that had lost their places to go were gathering farther and farther north.
For now, there were still several powerful figures holding on across each Area, but there was no knowing when they would return as well.
‘Some will accept the additional mission, and some won’t.’
A massive new movement surged in from beyond the distant forest.
The monsters were truly rolling in like waves now.
‘They were waves before, but now they’re almost a tsunami.’
He was not afraid.
He had thousands of pets.
Even if they disappeared and only his Avatars remained, he was confident he could continue hunting by making use of Subspace.
‘How much can I earn over the next month?’
Juggernaut gripped his club again.
Stone, standing beside him, cracked his neck from side to side.
Steel, who had just come out after switching shifts, lightly braced the repeatedly improved Mana Cannon against his shoulder.
After a simple test, he would switch back to his club.
“All right. Let’s do this.”
* * *
Two months after the additional mission began.
The man who had severed the neck of the last charging Wolf sat on a rock for a moment, breathing heavily.
“Whew...”
A greatsword stained with blood.
He had not originally used such a heavy, thick sword, but the monsters’ hides were so tough and hard that he had no choice.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his forearm, the man blankly watched the corpses piled around him vanish.
“I fought so much they didn’t even have time to disappear.”
So many monsters had rushed him at once that he had barely been able to think.
Still, he had wiped them all out, so he should have at least a few minutes to catch his breath.
“Maybe they’re being considerate. The respawn timing is slower than before.”
Instead, the number of monsters pouring in at once had increased.
In a way, it was six of one, half a dozen of the other, but most users said the current arrangement was better.
“Let’s move.”
He had no time to keep sitting.
He hurriedly collected the items scattered around him.
Not all of them, of course.
He did not bother picking up things that were large and heavy but not worth much.
“Okay. Got one box.”
The extra rewards had been quite good during the first month.
With experience and Points inflated to 1.5 times, he could clearly feel the difference the more he hunted.
“I wasn’t the only one who extended, either.”
There was still time before the next respawn.
He opened the System window.
The public bulletin board had barely been used since SNS became widespread.
Only users in the same Test Area could use it, and it had no anonymity, so it had gradually fallen quiet for various reasons.
People could not communicate there with those who had returned home, and uploading photos or videos was more inconvenient than on SNS.
But now, those things had become advantages instead.
As most users returned, the number of people posting on the board nearly vanished as well.
Those who returned could no longer use the Test Area bulletin board, so only those remaining in the Test Area could write or view posts.
At some point, it had become something like a dedicated bulletin board for the additional mission participants who remained there.
[This is my last extension]
I can’t do this anymore.
As soon as this mission ends, I’m leaving.
-I’m thinking about it too.
ㄴDon’t think about it. Just leave.
-I wanted to buy just one item before leaving, but I’m earning fewer Points than I expected.
ㄴIsn’t that because you run away every time I see you and barely hunt?
ㄴNo facts allowed.
-Is anyone staying until next month?
ㄴNot me.
ㄴI guess I’ll have to see how this mission goes first.
ㄴYou said that last month too.
Similar posts appeared every day.
When the additional mission first began, about thirty of the well-known users who had received the offer were said to have participated.
Not all of them appeared on the bulletin board, but about that many left comments on a post made to check attendance.
Then, when the first month ended and it was time to extend, more than half disappeared.
And now, with the second month nearing its end, fewer than ten remained.
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