Chapter 11
Right now, the points I have are...
Shop Points: 9
Free Stat Points: 6.
The question was how to distribute them efficiently...
I could use Shop Points whenever I needed them, but the key was how to distribute those Free Stat Points.
Even if I left Magic out of it, since I’d already increased it a lot with the butter mochi...
I was still lacking Agility, Strength, and even Stamina.
How should I distribute the points among these three?
It was a dilemma that made me happy and dizzy at the same time.
Then a thought crossed my mind.
“Come to think of it, I still have Goblin Head Smoothie, right?”
The thing that had been overshadowed by King Slime Butter Mochi.
It was my second dish, and a way to solve my Agility problem.
“In that case, I can just split them evenly between Stamina and Strength.”
That meant I didn’t have to agonize over it; I could just use the points on Stamina and Strength.
Even without spending points on Agility, the smoothie could raise it to a certain extent.
More importantly, I was definitely stronger now than before.
I should be able to kill a mere goblin with just a flick of my finger.
Besides, back then I hadn’t had any cooking equipment, so I’d used Instant Preparation.
Now I had all the equipment and ingredients I needed.
It was the perfect setup for mass-producing proper smoothies.
There was just one problem.
“…But that means I have to eat it again.”
It tasted good.
But it really only tasted good.
I still couldn’t forget the smell when I’d eaten the Goblin Head Smoothie.
That nauseating smell that came through no matter how tightly I plugged my nose.
They say aroma accounts for half the taste of food.
By that standard, Goblin Smoothie was genuinely inedible.
“But I can’t exactly not eat it…”
This problem felt much harder than most dilemmas.
If I cared about efficiency, eating the smoothie was the right choice.
But my body and brain refused.
Agility and efficiency gained through a moment of suffering?
Or taking the long way around without suffering?
That was the question.
“…”
Had a thousand years or ten thousand years of contemplation passed?
The choice I made was...
“…Ugh, I’m sorry, sense of smell. I can’t help it if it’s for efficiency…!”
[Will you really use your Free Stat Points?]
“Yes.”
[Strength stat increased by 3.]
[Stamina stat increased by 3.]
A moment’s pain for maximum efficiency.
I’d thought it over deeply, but I couldn’t come up with a better choice.
If I just endured a little, I could eventually raise all my stats.
“Future me, I’m counting on you.”
Shifting the responsibility onto my future self, I checked the increased stats again.
ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ
Stats
Strength: 5
Agility: 3.5
Magic: 10.2
Stamina: 4
ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ
They’d changed as a result of eating the butter mochi and using the stat points just now.
Strength and Stamina had each gone up by about 3, while Magic had increased exponentially.
But seeing them as numbers alone didn’t give me much of a sense of the difference.
“Is there anything around here?”
I looked around to test them out right away.
The room was strewn with various equipment, unorganized mana stones, and the crown.
I immediately picked up the kitchen knife lying by itself among them.
Whoosh-
“Oh, I can feel a bigger difference than I expected.”
As I swung the kitchen knife around, I could clearly feel the difference from before I raised my stats.
Before, just holding the knife made it feel heavy and awkward to swing.
Now I could move without any resistance.
And even after swinging the knife over and over, I didn’t feel tired at all.
I could really feel how much stronger I’d gotten.
“Maybe I should go check out the Tower for a bit…”
The Tower and Gates were perfect for testing how much stronger I was.
I could feel the difference in my Stamina and Strength to some extent,
but I was itching to test my still-mysterious Magic stat.
“No, it’s still too bright out.”
I checked the time. It was four in the afternoon.
If it were winter, it might’ve been getting dark, but it was still spring, so the sun was shining brightly.
I had no choice but to kill time at home.
I decided to just post on the Gallery now.
There was no better way to kill time than the Gallery,
and honestly, I also wanted to get some information about the crown. I was a little antsy to post, too.
I immediately dove toward the computer and opened the Gallery, as always.
That blue logo always seemed to fill me with dopamine, no matter how often I saw it.
I logged into the Gallery and moved the cursor straight to the Post button.
That’s when it happened.
“What’s that…?”
A post with a star sticker attached caught my eye at the very top of the Gallery.
The star sticker was a very special and prestigious sticker, reserved only for top posts.
But so what?
The title of the top post I’d just spotted was pretty extraordinary.
[ ★ Title: The Association’s live Tower rankings are fucked]
A pretty provocative title that grabbed your attention.
Especially when I saw “Tower rankings,” I felt strangely drawn to it and forgot all about writing my own post.
I clicked on it as if I were under a spell.
[ ★ Title: The Association’s live Tower rankings are fucked]
I’m an office worker at the Association, and things are crazy right now.
It’s the last week of the month, so we’re pulling Tower data and updating the rankings, and first place changed lol.
(Link to the official Korea Hunter Association website)
(Photo of the rankings with ??? entered in first place)
Sangun Lee Cheol-ho, who’d been firmly in first place, just got dethroned lol
Sangun’s at the Association right now, demanding to know what happened.
ㄴ Holy shit, this is insane. Lee Cheol-ho scored 5,100 on the first floor, but the current first-place rank has 18,000 points ㄷㄷ
ㄴ For real;;
ㄴ What the hell is difficulty ???, anyway? What is even going on?
ㄴ What about the overseas rankings?
ㄴ (OP) The overseas rankings update tomorrow, so they’re not out yet;;
ㄴ But honestly, shouldn’t we assume it’s already happened?
Last week’s overseas rankings had Aquila from the US in first place with 11,000 points ㄷㄷ
“Uh… is that me?”
The moment I checked the post, my brain froze.
As far as I could tell, I was the only one the Tower would label as ???.
I immediately visited the site linked in the post to check for myself.
[1st-Floor Rankings]
1st ??? [Difficulty: ???] 18,230 points
2nd Sangun [Difficulty: Hard] 5,130 points
3rd Ice-Flame Emperor (氷炎帝) [Difficulty: Hard] 4,820 points
▼More
“As I thought—it’s me?!”
The difficulty was openly listed as ???.
And since there was no ??? next to the rankings from the second floor onward,
it was obvious that this was referring to me.
“I figured I’d show up somewhere in the rankings, but they’re putting me this high?”
I couldn’t believe it.
I’d expected to be around 30th place at best.
But reality was staring me in the face: I was proudly sitting in first place.
The strategy post said Hard difficulty had four goblins on the first floor.
I couldn’t understand how there could be such a huge difference just for defeating one King Slime.
It had even been weakened, too.
Still...
“Heh—I’m number one.”
It felt amazing.
I was first, not second or third.
How could I not be happy about that?
The excitement kept bubbling up, and I couldn’t stop grinning.
But I had to hold back.
I needed to look at the situation calmly.
Now that I’d landed in first place by such a huge margin, guilds, the Association, or even the government might start moving to find ???—in other words, me.
I stopped writing my post for the moment and started looking into things a little more.
And then...
Another post appeared above the one I’d just read.
[ ★ Title: The Association’s official statement is out]
They say it could be a temporary Tower error, so they’re going to monitor it for about a week to a month.
Probably either a real error, or ??? is someone hiding their identity.
One of those two, yeah.
If you were worried even for a second, hit recommend lol.
ㄴ Recommend lol
ㄴ lol, fair. There’s no way first place would suddenly change like that.
ㄴ It’s hilarious that Cheol-ho went straight to the Association lol
ㄴ Looks like we had a major incident today that exposed humanity’s incompetence-
ㄴ El-
ㄴ As expected, only an El-simp says stupid shit.
ㄴ El-simp, El-simp, take your meds and go to sleep;;
Maybe I should say it was a relief.
After the brief uproar, both the Association and the Gallery seemed to think it was just a simple error.
“Still, just in case, I should use a proxy.”
Even though it looked like things had calmed down somewhat, I figured I should be careful.
I immediately found a VPN online and routed my IP through some far-off country I’d never heard of.
And just in case, I deleted the metadata from the butter mochi photos.
This alone probably wouldn’t get me identified as that ???.
But if I got found out for some reason, it would obviously become a hassle.
I transferred the butter mochi photos with the metadata removed to my computer.
Then I immediately started writing a post on the Gallery.
[Title: How’s today’s King Slime Butter Mochi?]
(Photo of King Slime’s Crown and blue butter mochi lined up)
I made butter mochi with King Slime Jelly and mana stones. How’s it look?
The texture’s kind of fucked, but it tasted good lol
ㄴ This was a good thread to get fired up over, and then you post a cursed image, you bastard? No warning?
ㄴ You actually ate that? That’s a new strat.
ㄴ Hey, fuck, do you not know how to use a spoiler warning?
“Mm, just as I expected.”
As expected, there weren’t any unusual reactions yet.
They were just insulting me or quietly giving it a downvote.
Nobody asked about the crown or pretended to know anything about it.
I’d hoped people would show at least a little interest in the crown and butter mochi… kind of disappointing.
Well, it couldn’t be helped.
Still, I got a little dopamine out of it, so I was satisfied.
I could always make another post about the crown.
Just as I finished checking the reactions and was about to get up...
ㄴ ??? Where’d you get that crown?
“Oh…”
It was clearly different from the comments above.
Someone had left the comment I wanted to see.