Chapter 2
#2. Gold Spoon Start
The black horned rabbit charging at me looked almost like a bullet.
“What the hell!”
Reflexively, I raised my arms to protect my body, but my awkward stance did nothing.
The horned rabbit's forehead shoved my arm aside, and it rammed its thick horn into my solar plexus.
“Gah!”
As the horned rabbit, the size of a large dog, slammed into me with full force, my body naturally toppled backward.
Shit, a horned rabbit that strikes first? That monster wasn't in the walkthroughs.
No, forget that. I'm going to die!
“Ugh, huff!”
Sweating buckets, I hurriedly checked my body where the horned rabbit had rammed me.
But there wasn't a single wound anywhere. I'd been hit with that much force and speed, yet I was completely fine.
Only after confirming that my body was fine did I belatedly remember the status window.
HP : 91/100
The displayed HP had gone down. That headbutt had taken off 9 points.
Right, that's right.
Once again, I belatedly recalled the basic system of the Tower of Trials.
In this Tower of Trials, a system very similar to a game is in place. Stats, skills, and even HP.
If you're attacked by an enemy, HP decreases, and you never suffer a fatal wound before it runs out. It's basically like a shield.
I had known that much even before entering the Tower of Trials, but I'd been so flustered that I'd completely forgotten.
“I-I thought I was dead.”
I wiped the cold sweat running down my forehead and stood up.
The black horned rabbit that had slammed into me was no longer bouncing around, and was glaring at me instead.
It looked like it was waiting for another chance to body-slam me. Like hell I'd let it.
“You little shit!”
I sprinted at the black horned rabbit and drove a soccer kick into it.
-Squeak!
I'd only been hitting it however I could after my wooden sword broke, but it seemed to work better than expected. Is this the difference a Strength stat of 2 makes?
After the soccer kick, I kept on kicking it. The black horned rabbit kept squeaking as it got pummeled again and again.
Since there was no damage display, I couldn't tell whether my attacks were landing well or not.
Then the black horned rabbit's eyes seemed to flash slightly, and it charged at me again with another body slam.
“Ghk!”
I'd been hit squarely even when it charged from far away; now that it was leaping at me up close, there was no way to dodge.
I went flying backward, but once again I had no wounds—just a small drop in HP.
“Hyaaah!”
I got right back up and kicked again! And the black horned rabbit squeaked once more!
I was startled when it suddenly jabbed me with its horn, but once I actually fought it properly, it wasn't any different from the other horned rabbits.
It's just a low-level monster anyway. Now obediently become my EXP.
-Squeak! Squeak! Squeeeak……!
After beating it for quite a while, the black horned rabbit finally collapsed as well.
[Black Horned Rabbit Hide]
[Horned Rabbit Horn]
The horned rabbit dropped two items. Without even checking the loot, I headed straight back to town.
And then I opened the open community and started searching for information on the black horned rabbit.
**
-Welcome to the Tower of Trials Open Community!
[Floor 1 Guide for Tower of Trials Newbies Ver. Real Final]
[Floor 1 Area Monster Info (Revised)]
[Must Read! Basic Guide Part 1 for Beginner Challengers]
[Basic Interface Usage]
Even after combing through every early-game guide compiled on the open community, there wasn't much mention of the black horned rabbit.
But my search skills, honed by years of sitting around at home scratching my belly and living on the internet, found the information just fine.
Not from the guide posts that had been revised several times, but from an old guide that had been buried long ago.
[Floor 1 Area Monster Info (Old Version)]
[Black Horned Rabbit: Appears after killing 10 or more horned rabbits in a row in the plains area, HP is double that of a normal horned rabbit, first-strike monster, guaranteed horn drop.]
The reason the latest guide posts didn't mention the black horned rabbit was clear from the comment section.
[Confirmed that, as of February 17, 2017, it no longer spawns in any existing Tower of Trials.]
That's right. The black horned rabbit was now an extinct monster that no longer spawned in other Towers of Trials.
The monsters and resources that exist in the Tower of Trials are finite.
Good hunting grounds, good quests, and good items had all already been snapped up by the first-generation hunters of the upheaval period, when the world itself had been turned upside down, leaving none behind.
But since I'm the only challenger in Tower 2661, those finite resources are still left in abundance.
Isn't that amazing?
That means I can monopolize the treasures in the labyrinth area, the rare items with limited quantities, and the like all by myself.
Maybe my life isn't quite so utterly fucked after all.
**
“Take care on your way out!”
I stepped outside, receiving the weapon shop NPC's emotionless farewell.
In my hand was the newly bought wooden sword. It was a [Sturdy Wooden Sword] I bought with the money I got from selling the horned rabbit hide at the shop.
I had originally planned to buy an ordinary wooden sword, but the black horned rabbit's hide was a fairly expensive item, so I ended up making more money than expected.
It cost twice as much as a normal wooden sword, but its durability was more than twice as high, so if I could afford it, buying the sturdy wooden sword was the obvious choice.
Other Tower of Trials newbies wouldn't buy something like a wooden sword at all, but I wasn't particularly jealous because of that.
I'm going to make far more money than the other challengers from here on out, so there's no reason to begrudge this kind of expense.
“Hm, I like it.”
Maybe because it was an expensive wooden sword, it fit my hand much better. I'm looking forward to how satisfyingly I can beat the horned rabbits with it.
I went back out to the field and resumed hunting horned rabbits.
According to the guide posts on the open community, if you just clear all the horned rabbit-related quests given by the town NPCs, you'll reach level 5 in no time.
On top of that, I had received a black horned rabbit-related quest that you couldn't get in other Towers of Trials.
The Tower of Trials' limited elements apply not only to monsters and items, but to quests as well.
There are said to be several limited quests that can no longer be accepted once you've progressed past a certain number of times. And the rewards for these quests are generally pretty good.
In fact, after digging through the open community for quest-related information, I found that the black horned rabbit hunt quest had stronger rewards than other quests.
It would more than make up for the money I spent on the wooden sword, leaving me far better off than the other challengers at my level.
They said I should enter the labyrinth area after hitting level 3, but at this rate I'd reach level 3 with room to spare.
When I first received the invitation, I naturally planned to ride the coattails of a ranker and become a low-tier hunter.
But if I grow by snatching up a ton of limited resources early on like this, maybe I could become a B-rank hunter, if not S- or A-rank?
No, maybe I could even find a hidden piece and grow all the way to S-rank?
“Hyaaah!”
I dove into horned rabbit hunting with my happy delusions burning bright.
**
Fueled by my overflowing motivation, I cleared all the horned rabbit quests in no time.
Now the only quest left that I could do in the field was the repeatable one that could be cleared once per day.
So what did I get for clearing the quests? Ta-da.
“Status window.”
I immediately pulled up my much flashier status window. In just a few hours, my level had risen beyond recognition.
Seo Jin-hyuk Lv.8 (Unemployed)
HP : 200/200
MP : 140/140
Strength : 10 (8+2)
Agility : 10 (8+2)
Endurance : 8
Intelligence : 8
I was level 8 already, level 8!
It wasn't information known on the open community, but it seemed that the first person on the server to clear a quest received additional rewards.
Thanks to the bonus for being the first to clear all the horned rabbit-related quests, my level went up much more than I'd initially expected.
And on top of that, there was a thick book strapped to my right arm, almost like a shield.
It was an equipment item called [World Rabbit Encyclopedia], which you could receive at random for clearing the horned rabbit quest.
According to the open community's stats, the chance of getting it was 10%, but since I was the first to clear it, I could choose the reward directly.
A sweet early-game item that boosted Strength and Agility by 2 each and HP by 20. And it even came with a sizable amount of G (gold).
“Khh... this is one hell of a gold spoon start.”
It's the kind of early setup that only challengers with 'connections,' as people on the open community like to say, can usually have.
I went straight to the shop and spent every bit of the money I'd earned that day to fully gear myself out with armor as well.
Then I logged into the open community and wrote a post, revealing my equipment and status window using the [Attach Photo] feature.
[Author: Seo Jin-hyuk#2661]
[Title: Tower of Trials Day 1 Newbie Spec, how's it look?]
(Photo)
TL;DR.
- Bullshit.
- How the hell did you hit level 8 on day one?
- And your gear is full shop-bought gear too, lmao.
- Which tower is 2661, anyway?
- ㄴ Yeah, I've never seen 2661 before.
- ㄴ ?? Seriously, what is 2661?
- You're asking if it's decent? Of course it's top-tier, you bastard.
- Rabbit encyclopedia flex, damn lol.
- ㄴ Emily, that bitch, gives the encyclopedia to everyone but me.
- You should've upgraded the encyclopedia with the armor money instead.
Everyone marveled at my specs, which were hard to believe had been built up in just one day. Feeling deeply satisfied, I closed the community.
“The most expensive room you have here.”
And then I got a room at the village inn, flopped onto the bed, spent a long while on the community again, and fell asleep just like that.
The open community's fervent response gave me a blissful night's sleep.