Chapter 12
A few days later, on Hunter Gallery.
[Notice: False reports about the NPC will get you an IRL beatdown]
Author: (Submod) Tower Defense
Content:
If you get caught, you're dead. I'm serious.
Trolling Hunter Gallery gets you an IRL beatdown.
Give an exact location.
People are dying!
Comments
ㄴ Anonymous: LMAOOOOOOOO
ㄴ SS Above S: The submod's gone dark.
ㄴ (Submod) Tower Defense: Fuck, how many of these do I have to delete in a day?! I can't even climb the Tower!
ㄴ Soup Fan: Who asked you to do it? lol
ㄴ Anonymous: You liked banning people, didn't you?
ㄴ (Submod) Tower Defense: You're banned.
ㄴ Soup Fan: Ah, fuck, don't do that.
At the same time, a post with some substance.
[Title: Found the Fifth-Floor Safety Zone]
Author: Anonymous
Content:
Yeah.
Comments
ㄴ Anonymous: Should we trust an account with no history?
ㄴ Anonymous: Everyone's quiet.
ㄴ Tower Climber: Confirmed, it showed up.
1.
At the Nebula Guild, at the same time.
"Se-ah! It's up! The fifth-floor safety zone is open right now!"
Shin Eun-woo rushed in without even knocking.
Yoo Se-ah's eyes sharpened as she worked at her desk.
"Really? Then let's get ready."
Yoo Se-ah started preparing to leave.
Shin Eun-woo tilted his head, looking curious.
"Was it really a good idea to buy thirty from our streamer? The going price for the pills has dropped to two million won now."
They'd paid ten million won per pill.
It wasn't much compared to the guild's income, but looking at the current price, it seemed like a bad investment.
Yoo Se-ah, however, was completely at ease.
"Don't worry. We'll definitely profit."
"I don't get it. How can we profit if the price keeps dropping?"
Shin Eun-woo scratched his head.
Yoo Se-ah spoke as if it were obvious.
"The four biggest guilds in Korea all have the same goal right now."
"Right. To clear the fiftieth floor."
"Exactly. We're all about the same size and strength."
"So what?"
"That means the amount of pills each guild collects by mobilizing its members will be about the same."
Only then did Shin Eun-woo seem to catch on.
"Oh, right! So the thirty we got first...!"
"That's right. That's our advantage."
They didn't know exactly how effective the pills were, but if they had an effect similar to NASA's micro combat rations, they'd need 150.
No, maybe they'd manage with just 100.
They could make up the rest with combat rations, glucose candies, and butter.
Even so, Shin Eun-woo still looked like he didn't entirely understand.
"But if the price is dropping, doesn't that mean the market's going to get flooded with them like common junk?"
"No. We're just geographically close to her. Think about what the item can do."
"What it can do?"
"There are only about ten countries in the world that have cleared the fiftieth floor. Do you think the rest of the world will just sit back and watch?"
"Oh!"
"The price will shoot back up before long."
Only then did he nod.
"I knew you'd be good at handling the annoying stuff. I'm glad I left it to you."
"Sigh—this is all because of you..."
"So what now? We've collected about fifty in total."
"What about the other guilds?"
"Pretty much the same. I think the other guilds have collected around twenty each."
After Shin Eun-woo answered, silence fell over the office.
Yoo Se-ah pondered for a long while, then set her jaw as if making an important decision.
"Just collecting them won't get us anywhere. In the end, everyone will fight over a single pill."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Let's upend the whole board. Call the guild members together right now."
"What are you planning?"
"Tell each guild member to buy a different kind of food. As many varieties as possible. And it has to be top quality."
"What about me?"
"You and I have something else to take care of."
2.
I'm standing in the fifth-floor safety zone. Just standing here...
My mind's going kind of blank.
No! I've only been here for five minutes!
And what's that over there?
Pillars of light were constantly shooting up from the stone floor in a corner of the safety zone.
It was an amazing effect I'd never seen before, so I asked the hunter beside me.
"What's that?"
"That? Oh, that! It's a teleportation circle!"
"A teleportation circle?"
"Oh! You wouldn't know, since you're an NPC! It's a system that takes you straight to the highest floor you've cleared."
"I see."
How would I know? I'd never left here before.
Besides, I was an illegal immigrant.
Still, I thought I should try going out soon.
Was the problem that there were too many people right now?
It had only been five minutes, but the safety zone was on the verge of bursting at the seams.
It felt like I was at some huge popular festival.
Maybe because there were so many people, those arriving via the teleportation circle couldn't get out.
Then the teleportation circle even stopped working...
Naturally, I could hear people arguing all around me.
"Ah—move! Our guild members are coming! What are you doing blocking the teleportation circle? Don't you know you'll get banned?"
"There's nowhere to go! What do you expect me to do? Seriously! Stop pushing!"
It was complete chaos.
If things stayed like this, someone was going to get seriously hurt.
I hurried out to the front yard.
The people poured out like passengers spilling off a packed train.
Now that everyone was spread out, hmm... it felt like a concert venue.
But the local monsters didn't seem to like it.
ㅡ Grrrrrr!
A Dire Wolf roaming the field charged at them, as if on cue.
Was it crazy? There were so many people here!
ㅡ Pow! Wham! Crunch! Boom! Boom!
"Yelp—!"
It went down before it could even get close enough to bite anyone.
That took less than a second, didn't it?
Well, there had to be hunters here who operated on floors higher than this one, right?
Maybe I should say the monsters had vanished from the field?
The people didn't even spare the Dire Wolf's corpse a glance.
'Wouldn't we win every raid if we went in like this?'
More importantly, how long was I supposed to keep doing this?
At this rate, I'd really become an NPC.
Well, even if I wanted to leave, I'd need money to do that.
I wouldn't go hungry, but where would I sleep...?
At a time like this, I felt like I needed some sort of turning point.
I thought I might be able to come up with something.
Then suddenly, a decent idea came to me.
'Why don't I just go up to the sixth floor?'
Whatever showed up, it couldn't be another boar, could it?
Would it really be so strange for an NPC to go to another floor and stop making pills?
It seemed perfect. I should try it right away!
No, should I take care of this first?
The pack of zombies that had been watching me from ahead was edging closer.
'Let's deal with these people first!'
And so, as if they'd planned it, people started lining up one by one,
I accepted their food and handed out Bigu Pills,
and little by little, very little by little, the crowd started to thin out.
3.
A few hours later.
The crowd had gotten a lot smaller.
With just a little more, I thought I could finally finish this tedious, high-minded task.
That's right! Forever!
While I nodded to myself, pleased with how well I was doing, a woman approached me.
But why did I feel so tingly?
It was like my body was sounding an alarm.
My hair was standing on end, too.
Meanwhile, our viewers were paying attention to someone else.
'They're looking at someone else while I'm streaming...'
ㄴ Taehyun Zhenren: There are some rather capable mortals among them.
ㄴ Jade-Cold Ice Empress: She carries herself well and has an air of grace.
ㄴ Five Azure Demon King: She'd make a decent cauldron.
ㄴ Taebaek Sword Lord: Old Ancestor, you say the same thing every day.
ㄴ Blood River Patriarch: Damn old geezer. I didn't say that.
ㄴ Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Master: To borrow Lord Demon King's words, isn't Lord Demon King a human fetishist?
ㄴ Five Azure Demon King: You've got guts, huh? You think I can't get to you?
Hmm—what a pointless conversation.
As I checked the chat, the woman in front of me spoke.
"Could I talk to you for a moment?"
She definitely looked familiar.
I'd originally been going to ask who she was, but...
"Yoo Se-ah from Nebula!"
"It's S-rank Yoo Se-ah!"
"Is she going to sweep up everything?"
I could hear the usual lines from extras.
I probably didn't need to ask after all.
Thanks to that, I remembered who she was.
Wasn't she from one of the top guilds in Korea?
I'd seen her on the news, after all.
More importantly, I should hear what she wanted first, right?
"What is it?"
The woman glanced around, then spoke cautiously.
"Could I buy a large quantity of that medicine you have?"
Hmm. I'd figured something like this might happen.
Seeing how everyone was flocking here, there had to be some use for it.
I just hadn't expected one of Korea's most successful guilds to come.
I'd seen a few of their videos before.
They all fought hard.
Still, was this medicine really that effective?
No, more importantly, I didn't like this very much.
They were a big guild, so they had plenty of money and wanted to buy up the whole supply, didn't they?
How should I put it...? I didn't like it.
It felt like a rich person getting greedy!
"No. If I give everything to you, no one else will be able to buy any."
"No, that's not it. We're not trying to monopolize it just because we're a big guild."
What? Had she read my mind?
Did S-rank hunters have mind-reading powers, too?
I instinctively took a step back, just in case.
Seeing that I was about to run, she hurried to speak.
"Do you know anything about the state of Korea's Tower clears?"
"No. I don't."
"Korea hasn't cleared the fiftieth floor yet. Actually, aside from a few countries, no one else has either."
"Really? But that doesn't explain why you want them."
"The fiftieth floor has a debuff called the Curse of Famine."
"The Curse of Famine?"
"Yes. The moment you enter, you get insanely hungry every hour, until you become unable to fight."
"Seriously?"
"It's true. It gets even worse once you enter the boss fight."
You got hungry every hour?
That was awful.
Then a message appeared in the chat.
ㄴ Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Master: How interesting. There are laws in the lower realm, too.
ㄴ Taehyun Zhenren: From the looks of it, is this law too broad to be imposed by a Deity Transformation cultivator? It seems to be at a level similar to ours.
ㄴ Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Master: The law is too crude for that. All it does is make people hungry.
ㄴ Taebaek Sword Lord: That's true. It wouldn't affect a cultivator at all.
ㄴ Jade-Cold Ice Empress: The child may be affected. If they go while still at the Qi Refining stage, the law will affect them greatly.
ㄴ Five Azure Demon King: Breaks if you apply force.
Were laws something cultivators could use, too?
"Anyway, to clear the fiftieth floor, we'd need to buy the US micro combat rations, but that's not easy right now."
"Why? Won't the US sell them?"
"They will, but I heard the negotiations are difficult, so they're hard to get."
Was what she was saying true?
I asked the hunter who'd been watching beside us.
"Is what she's saying true?"
The hunter stared blankly at me, then looked startled to have been asked a question out of the blue.
"Uh... Huh? It's true! I'm not lying!"
"If I catch you lying, I won't trade medicine with you anymore!"
The man panicked.
"It's true! I swear on my mother!"
Hmm... So it was true.
Then should I help her?
I didn't particularly think of myself as a patriot, but I'd gotten support from the country.
When I was at the orphanage, they'd supported us in all kinds of ways.
That didn't mean I was going to do it for free, though.
I had just one last question.
"So are all those people lined up to get the medicine because of the fiftieth-floor clear?"
"Yeah."
"Why? Not all of them are going to try to clear the fiftieth floor, are they?"
She seemed to ponder for a moment, then gave me a bitter smile.
"Your pills are going for about two million won each right now."
"What?!"
Two million won? Two million won for a single Bigu Pill?
I'd given them away for food, and they were worth two million won!
And the people buying them were hunters who made good money?
I felt betrayed.
"Really? Hunters make so much money—why are they doing this?"
Scalpers, seriously.
That was so evil!
"Not all of them make good money. You have to climb above the twentieth floor to earn more than an ordinary person."
"What?"
She nodded with a serious expression. It didn't look like she was lying.
"You start making a little money after the tenth floor, but below that, your upkeep costs can actually put you in the red."
"Really?"
"Yeah. That's why there are so many hunters just trying to make a living."
Hunters were farming for gold, too?
Everyone admired hunters, thinking they'd have it easy if they became one.
"So that's why everyone's crowding around?"
"Yeah."
I didn't have anything else to ask.
They were risking their lives to work, and they could still end up in the red.
Didn't the government support them?
What could I even say to that?
Come to think of it, this woman was a hunter who worked around the fiftieth floor.
But she was desperate enough to come find me.
'She doesn't seem to be lying...'
After thinking it over, I took a jar out of my storage pouch.
"There should be about fifty in here."
But her expression looked a little strange.
Almost disappointed?
"I'm really grateful, and I hate to ask, but... could you get any more?"
"I only have a few left now."
She nodded as if there was nothing she could do about it.
"All right. Anyway, thank..."
"But these are more effective than the others."
Her eyes lit up again at that.
"How much more effective?"
"Hmm... At least three times?"
"Oh!"
She seemed satisfied now.
She took the jar and asked me,
"Would you like food in exchange, like the others?"
Food? I had so much now it was becoming a problem.
But a top guild must have plenty of money, right?
I could ask for a little more, couldn't I?
"I'll take money instead. I heard they're selling for two million won, but since your situation is tough, I'll only charge 200,000 won per pill."
"Then..."
"But these are at least three times as effective, so 600,000 won each! For fifty, that'll be 30 million won."
I worked up the nerve and named my price.
Surely a top guild could afford 30 million won.
Even if they couldn't pay right now, I was willing to wait.
And if they thought it was too expensive, I was willing to lower the price a little.
But her actions were strange.
Why did she look so happy?
She quietly nodded after hearing the price, then raised her hand.
At that, the hunters who'd been watching quietly behind her came rushing forward.
'What? Did I ask for too much?'
The hunters started taking all kinds of food out of their combat backpacks and piling it up.
A whole lot of different kinds, too!
"I told you I wanted money!"
Then a hulking man stepped forward.
He held out a heavy-looking bag.
Yoo Se-ah spoke up.
"I brought cash just in case. Two hundred million won for 100 pills. I brought that food to give you, so you can just take it."
My head spun for a moment.
She was giving me money and food?
She'd come prepared with money?
How had she known I wanted money?
Besides, I'd asked for 30 million won. Why was she giving me 200 million?
Wasn't something fishy going on?
"Why are you giving me more?!"
"It's a fair deal."
A fair deal?
I didn't get it.
What was she up to?
Still, she'd laid everything out in front of me and told me to take it. I couldn't just leave it all behind.
I put everything away in my storage pouch for now.
Then I heard people around me murmuring.
"Where'd all that go?"
"It's an NPC. I guess the system absorbs it."
"What would an NPC do with food and Korean money?"
"Maybe those are just the things it can trade for."
I ignored the people talking beside me.
More importantly, the woman was smiling with satisfaction.
'She's definitely up to something.'
"Are you satisfied with the deal?"
"Yeah. But don't come asking me for more medicine later."
"Understood."
After answering, Yoo Se-ah quickly left with the other guild members.
'Is it over? Did I do it?'
What on earth were they giving it to me for?
No, more importantly, I had money now!
I had 200 million won now!
Could I rent a room with that?
So much had happened all at once that I was a little overwhelmed.
At that moment, the teleportation circle started glowing again, and a man appeared.
He hurried out, looking around in a panic.