Chapter 11
[✪ Title : Chit-chat) In this harsh world… somehow it was a day that made my heart ache…^^]
Everyone worked hard today~,,,,
The world really is harsh and tough these days, isn't it? I'm holding on day by day, thinking of my little daughter waiting for me at home.. hehe..;;
Today I had a deal, and I met this one person, and when I opened the door, there was a very young lady standing there?..;;;
She was standing there in a crooked pose, trying to act tough, and,,, haha
That look of hers was so pitiful and cute,,, ㅠㅠ
Honestly, at first I thought... with the world being so harsh these days... maybe she'd been caught by bad adults and was doing rough work, so I even sent people around to check it out,,,,,
Thankfully, that didn't seem to be the case.
It looked like she'd gone into the tower all by herself and bravely(?) dug up mana stones..,
On closer inspection, one hand she'd been keeping tucked into her pocket was missing. At a glance, it looked like she was missing a few fingers too,,,
Ah...
I suddenly felt choked up.
Five years ago on that day, when I lost my wife and was raising my daughter alone as a father,,,,
The thought that, if even I were gone, our daughter might have been pushed out into the world all alone too made my chest sink. ㅠ_ㅠ
Whether she stole it or really went into the tower, I couldn't tell,, but in my eyes she was just a little kid I wanted to protect,,,
I wanted her to stop doing such dangerous things,,,
So for now, I sent 20 million won, a little above market, as payment for the mana stones,,,
And just in case, I even sent a little extra money to make sure the cash really went into her own account..;;
In times like these, even a stone bridge has to be tapped first before you cross it.. Heh heh. That's just an old man's needless worry~~^^*
But even after sending her home, my heart stayed heavy and sore in one corner,,
In the end, I couldn't bear it and... thinking of it as pocket money from your uncle, rest well~ I coolly added another 30 million won!^^;;;
I'm not some amazing person or anything..
In a rough world like this, shouldn't we adults at least take care of and protect the younger ones? ㅎㅎ
Tonight feels weirdly sentimental for no reason,,,
(I mean sentimental, hahaha~~)
Everyone, have a peaceful night and always be careful with your bodies..!! Then I'm off, scurry scurry,,,]
ㄴ This is what a real adult looks like. As a father with a daughter myself, I can relate. Respect!
ㄴ The writer's heart is so warm... I'll leave a roll of kimbap here too. Scurry scurry…. @))))))))).
ㄴ Shit, even the comments are peak boomer perfection, seriously.
ㄴ Fact) The average age in Hunter Gallery is in the 40s.
ㄴㄴ Is that actually true?
“Aaaagh!”
Shame washed over me.
I clutched my head and screamed.
I couldn't stand looking at the comment window any longer.
I closed the gallery and immediately opened Telegram.
[Hey, you crazy old man, what the hell is this post you wrote on Hunter Gallery?]
[Take it down right now????]
[Hehe... our little lady, you saw the post...^^;;]
[Did someone say something nasty in the comments?]
[Don't mind it~ There are always weird people on the internet.]
[If it still bothers you, Uncle will take the post down for you~]
“Agh! This guy doesn't understand a word!”
I hurled my phone far, far away.
Right, deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Let's find the inner peace I forged through meditation.
“Huu, haa... huu, haa....”
After slowly breathing in and out, I finally managed to calm down.
“Let's think positively. Positively.”
At any rate, my worries about living expenses had completely vanished.
You could even call it a mana stone sales route. As long as I could stomach a little disgust.
What's more, I hadn't revealed that I was a mage, so in effect I'd gotten the best possible result.
Now I could focus on the tower with peace of mind for a while.
I sat up in bed.
It was time to tackle the fifth floor I'd been putting off.
***
The next day. Before entering the tower, I logged into Mage Gallery as usual.
I was there to get information on today's target, the fifth floor.
[Title : Going to take on the first boss today.]
Just by writing that much, the buddies in our Mage Gallery could tell what was up at a glance.
They were already trying to hand me the info.
The first to reply was Refrigerator.
ㄴ Refrigerator : The fifth floor is the first wall.
From there on, the mobs start forming ranks and coming at you.
ㄴ Refrigerator : Goblin warriors with shields hold the front, while throwers and shamans support them from the back.
ㄴ Refrigerator : The boss is the goblin shaman in the middle. Kill that thing and you clear it.
“I’ve been getting mob formations from the third floor onward, though. Is this difficulty gap for real?”
I lamented my lot and posted a reply.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : That's on Hard difficulty, right?
ㄴ Refrigerator : Yeah... Nobody's been to Extreme, so who knows.... Maybe it just has more troops, like it's always been.
An answer I'd half expected.
But right now, how many goblins there were didn't matter much to me.
As long as I had Sand Bog, even if dozens came at me, the result would be the same.
What I was worried about was something else.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : There is also a chance a higher-rank goblin could show up, right?
ㄴ Beetle : I think the odds are low.
The higher-tier Goblin Lord can't be cleared solo, period.
The difficulty is mid-floor level and above. It's not a monster that should be showing up now.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : That's exactly when they show up, though.
ㄴ Beetle : The tower isn't that unreasonable.
Then Magic Firepower posted a telling comment.
ㄴ Magic Firepower : There is one hidden piece on the fifth floor.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : ? There was something like that?
ㄴ Magic Firepower : If you take the staff dropped by the goblin shaman at a specific spot in the cave and bring it over, a hidden door opens.
ㄴ Magic Firepower : If you go inside, you're guaranteed to obtain one skill book.
His comment caused a stir in the gallery.
It seemed the other Mage Gallery users were hearing this for the first time too.
ㄴ Refrigerator : What, how do you know that?
ㄴ Beetle : That's news to me too. Where did you get that info?
To the others' questions, Magic Firepower left a smug reply.
ㄴ Magic Firepower : Ahh—so you don't know. It's just half-baked people everywhere around hereㅡ.
His full-blown showboating made me snort.
But that bluff didn't last long.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : Could it be you got stuck on the fifth floor, spent several runs running away like crazy, and just happened to find it by accident?
A sharp guess from p깟쮸.
After that comment, Magic Firepower couldn't say another word.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : Huh? Looks like I was right lol. Total scrub.
There was no reply this time either.
He must have been hit right in the sore spot.
Chuckling, I shut down the computer.
Now I had gotten all the information I needed.
***
[Entering Tower Floor 5 (EXTREME).]
[Time limit : 30 minutes]
[Defeat the boss monster, Goblin Shaman, within the time limit.]
The boss room had a different structure from the previous floors.
It came with the condition that I had to clear it within a set amount of time.
Even if I failed when time ran out, though, I could challenge it again as many times as I wanted.
I prepared for a situation where dozens, maybe over a hundred goblins, would pour out.
But my prediction was spectacularly wrong.
What appeared before me was a goblin horde of only about ten.
At the very front were three or four shield-bearing warriors.
Behind them were throwers carrying rocks, and at the very back stood a shaman holding a crude skull staff.
It matched exactly the Hard-difficulty setup Refrigerator had described.
“This can't be right...?”
I tilted my head in confusion.
Up until now, Extreme difficulty had always boasted monster counts several times higher than Hard.
And yet the boss room was an exception?
There was no way.
“Anyway, let's do what needs doing first.”
The question was set aside for the moment.
In any case, taking out the enemy in front of me came first.
Without hesitation, I cast Sand Bog.
In an instant, the cave floor turned into a pit of sand.
The goblin warriors charging at me with shields sank straight into the bog and flailed about.
Their formation collapsed in an instant.
I leisurely formed sand bullets and burst their heads one by one.
In less than ten minutes, every monster, including the goblin shaman, had turned into a corpse.
[Tower Floor 5 (EXTREME) cleared.]
[Would you like to leave the tower? Y/N]
[Time remaining : 20 minutes 17 seconds]
An item dropped where the boss fell.
When I picked it up, a clear status window appeared.
Meaning it was an item I could take outside.
[Goblin Shaman's Skull Staff]
[Grade : Common]
[Mana +5]
“The design is way too ugly.”
I didn't particularly like the look of it, decorated with animal skulls.
More than anything, carrying something like this around on the street would attract aggro like crazy.
It would make sneaking around like this twice as hard.
“Still, it's a staff... hard to resist.”
Come to think of it, I'd been using magic with my bare hands until now.
I'd been breaking one S-rank hunter record after another without even a staff.
Once again, I felt just how broken Extreme difficulty was.
“Still, once I make a lot of money later, I should get some gear too.”
Even though just recently a few million won had landed in my account, hunter equipment was far more expensive.
Especially mage gear—some pieces went way over the hundred-million-won mark.
I still didn't feel like I was lacking in stats, but someday I would need it.
I tucked the crude skull staff into my waistband for now.
Then I set out to find the hidden piece Magic Firepower had mentioned.
[Would you like to leave the tower? Y/N]
[Time remaining : 18 minutes 56 seconds]
There were still more than fifteen minutes left on the clear limit.
More than that, it seemed I could leave the tower whenever I wanted.
If that was the case, they'd practically set the stage for me to search for the hidden piece openly.
I retraced my steps back up the monsterless cave.
The cave was damp and uncomfortable.
I walked, nearly tripping several times along the way.
“Now I know why nobody found this place.”
Right after a battle, when you're tired and drained, very few people would bother to backtrack through a cave like this and explore it.
Besides, most hunters have to stake their lives on clearing the floor itself.
A situation like mine, where I had time to spare, probably wouldn't come up for them.
The fact that Magic Firepower found it while blindly running away meant his luck was absurdly good.
How long had I walked?
I felt a strange sense of wrongness from one side of the cave wall.
When I turned my head, a faintly glowing crimson shaman circle, as if drawn in blood, was there.
It looked like it was openly advertising, 'There's something here.'
Just as I'd been told, I took the skull staff from my waistband and placed it at the center of the shaman circle.
Then the magic circle blazed with intense light, and the wall began to split apart like a giant door.
“All right, now all I have to do is grab the gold skill book from inside....”
I stepped into the dark space, anticipation swelling in my chest.
But what waited for me there wasn't a shining skill book.
“Hm? And who might you be?”
Something that shouldn't be there.
Something that absolutely could not be there was right in front of me.
“Why aren't you answering? Hmm... should I dispose of you?”
Inside the hidden space, someone was sitting.
A person who looked dangerous at first glance.