Chapter 110

‘No matter how I think about it, it seems easy. Or is it actually difficult?’

Though he had some thoughts about why the difficulty was rated high, they were just speculations, not certain facts.

First comes information gathering.

“Tell me everything you know about what happened before I came.”

-Hmm, well about that……

Kim Hyun-jun explained what he had experienced while recalling his memories.

There wasn’t anything particularly special.

He had been living his normal daily life when he suddenly found himself here, then some guy wrapped in black rags appeared and gave various information before wolves showed up and attacked.

A typical otherworld story introduction.

Though he understood the general situation, there were still a few questions remaining.

“Are you Korean?”

-Well, with a name like Kim Hyun-jun, would I be Chinese or Japanese?

-What was the date before you came to this world?

“January 18, 2033.”

“…By any chance, around 10 years ago, specifically around March 7, 2023, did anything huge happen on Earth?”

-2023? I don’t think anything strange happened then?

After asking a few more questions, Yuseong realized that Kim Hyun-jun’s Earth and his Earth were completely different worlds.

While major historical events might be the same, on Kim Hyun-jun’s Earth there had never been an epidemic or monster emergence.

Of course, Kim Hyun-jun’s origin didn’t particularly matter either way.

‘Now only one thing remains.’

Taking a deep breath, Yuseong reached his hand toward empty space.

[Spending 500 karma points to withdraw Iron Dagger(E).]

“Haah……”

When nothing happened, Yuseong let out a sigh of relief.

During the [Heavenly Demon Sect. The Final Moment] quest, the client Hae Cheongyeong had shown the ability to interfere with the goggles’ functions by arbitrarily stopping synchronization and taking or giving back body control.

Though he couldn’t know how powerful these beings called gods who created this world were, they surely weren’t below Hae Cheongyeong at minimum – he had thought they might notice something strange and impose restrictions the moment he used his user abilities, but fortunately it seemed to have passed safely.

‘No, it’s too early to relax.’

Perhaps they hadn’t noticed because it was just Thorny Vine and a dagger, but if he took out anything more than that, they might notice something strange.

No, not might – they definitely would.

If there were no such restrictions, he could easily clear the quest by using modern weapons like rifles and grenades along with skills to sweep away everyone, but if such methods were possible, it wouldn’t have been rated B+ difficulty.

‘Use user abilities as little as possible, and even if retrying becomes necessary, since the gods might retain memories, try to finish it in one attempt if possible.’

Realistically speaking it seemed impossible, but if there had been no possibility at all, he wouldn’t have chosen this quest.

-Seems like we can go down now?

Pulled from his thoughts by Kim Hyun-jun’s words, Yuseong belatedly realized the wolf had disappeared and climbed down from the tree.

He was about to leave while frowning at the human corpses scattered about and the sharp smell of blood when he noticed something and suddenly stopped.

“…Seems luck is with me from the start?”

* * *

“Gray wolf hide 55 silver, fangs 35 silver. Total 90 silver.”

A small pouch placed in his palm.

After checking the silver coins inside, Yuseong carefully tucked the pouch away and started looking around after leaving the building.

The central district where facilities were located.

He had thought a world unfriendly enough to kill two people right at the start would have barely met minimum requirements, but surprisingly it had everything needed like inns, blacksmiths, skill shops, and general stores.

According to Kim Hyun-jun’s explanation, serving as toys to amuse the gods happened after going to the main stage world.

This place was just preparation to make them suitable as toys, so there was no need to create harsh conditions yet.

‘Still, the atmosphere is rather gloomy.’

-Being suddenly kidnapped to a strange world, told we’re toys for gods, and barely surviving after being chased by wolves – how could the atmosphere be good?

‘Seems like some people are in a good mood though?’

Where Yuseong’s gaze pointed, there were people excitedly wandering around the village or shouting things like “Status Window” or “Skill Window” with faces that looked ready to burst into tears.

-Those people are a tiny minority.

‘Seems like quite a lot for a tiny minority……’

-Ahem, anyway, what are you planning to do now? You pulled out a dagger from thin air and created Thorny Vine from your hands – are you going to hunt monsters with those abilities? Or buy items or skills with the 90 silver from selling the wolves?

‘Neither.’

-What?

Without saying anything more, Yuseong approached the training ground located on one side of the village.

Various wooden weapons hung on display racks at the entrance, and inside were people attacking straw dummies and wooden dolls with weapons they had chosen under NPC guidance.

Stopping in front of the display rack, Yuseong calmly examined the weapons.

Among the countless diverse weapons, what Yuseong ultimately chose was not knuckles but a bow.

Since it was a chance to learn weapon skills from scratch, and since he had decided to walk the path of an all-rounder anyway, he thought it better to get used to new weapons.

‘The axe is somewhat tempting considering the plasma axe, but……’

Already learning martial arts and adding axe skills now wouldn’t be good balance-wise.

What he lacked now was ranged attack capability.

Of course, purely in terms of efficiency it would be better to ask Sophia to make weapons like rail guns or laser guns rather than learn archery, but unlike cutting-edge weapons that were difficult to freely use in quests, bows had the advantage of being usable in any world.

“Breathing, posture, calmness are all important, but the most important thing in archery is focus. You must not lose focus until the moment you release the string.”

Thwack!

Though the arrows flew in random directions at first, before long the accuracy started improving to a level anyone could recognize.

It wasn’t particularly due to Yuseong’s learning ability or Kim Hyun-jun’s talent – rather, it seemed special rules applied inside this training ground as other people’s skills were also clearly growing in a short time.

[You have acquired Archery(E).]

As soon as the message about acquiring archery appeared, Yuseong left the training ground, bought a bag from the general store, and returned to the forest he had escaped from earlier.

Kim Hyun-jun, who had been silently watching him draw and fire at wolves that appeared occasionally and finish off those that didn’t die in one shot with the dagger, finally couldn’t hold back anymore and asked.

-Um, is this really okay?

“Then what should I do?”

-Wouldn’t it be more efficient to either use your abilities, Mr. Yuseong, or buy strong equipment with the 90 silver and hunt stronger monsters while others hunt with wooden equipment?

“That’s certainly true.”

-Then why are we hunting wolves here? This isn’t any different from what others are doing.

There were other people hunting wolves in the forest besides Yuseong.

For Kim Hyun-jun, whose goal was to get ahead of others, he couldn’t help feeling urgent.

Yuseong spoke calmly to the excited Kim Hyun-jun.

“Do you think efficiently growing would make it possible to be among ten out of a thousand, the top 1%?”

While Kim Hyun-jun was speechless, Yuseong continued explaining calmly.

“As I explained earlier, I’m someone who helps solve difficult problems that people in other worlds are experiencing. And I have certain means to determine how difficult and challenging those problems are.”

-How difficult is my problem?

“B+. At least two levels higher than the hardest problem I’ve solved so far. So I had been considering two possibilities.”

The first was the possibility that the overall environment itself was designed to be very unfriendly and hostile.

Basic survival needs not being guaranteed, plus being dropped in lands unsuitable for human survival like deserts, jungles, or the arctic, with disasters like storms, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, and monsters everywhere thirsting for blood – an environment like that would roughly match B+ grade.

“No, maybe that’s not enough? Add to that daily missions that kill you if not completed and participants having death games – that level of balance might be more appropriate.”

-Su-surely such extreme situations couldn’t exist?

“You said you read novels? Wasn’t there at least one among the novels you read that described such extreme situations?”

-……

“Anyway, I had prepared things like food, clothing, medicine, and weapons thinking such situations might exist. But after seeing the central district, I realized this prediction was wrong. This is where the problem lies.”

The environment isn’t just unproblematic but is actually friendly to people.

Then there’s only one reason left for this quest to receive a B+ grade.

“It simply means getting into the top 1% is difficult enough to make you curse.”

There must be a difference greater than heaven and earth between the top 1% and those below.

Trying to overcome such a difference with restricted user abilities to avoid detection by the gods and 90 silver worth of equipment?

Nonsense.

“Efficient growth isn’t enough. You need to create something from nothing, beyond mere efficiency.”

-Create something from nothing? How?

“You’ll see.”

Unlike others who had no tools to harvest valuable hides and teeth and had to make multiple trips to the village to sell loot, Yuseong could hunt more efficiently since he had a bag.

“Gray wolf hides 19 gold 65 silver, fangs 9 gold 75 silver. Total 28 gold 40 silver.”

28 gold at once.

Two round trips for a total of 56 gold, a fortune.

An unbelievable achievement considering it was the first day, and the sun hadn’t even set yet.

Though he could go hunting one more time if he hurried, Yuseong instead spent several hours just wandering around the village.

Though Kim Hyun-jun complained again partway through, Yuseong’s answer was simple.

‘Gathering information.’

To Kim Hyun-jun it looked like he was just following people around mindlessly and slacking off without thinking, but since Yuseong controlled the body, there was nothing he could do except complain.

Of course, Yuseong wasn’t really slacking off.

‘As expected, not everyone is moving actively.’

No matter how much they threatened by showing people being killed, these were people who had lived in peaceful worlds and hadn’t even been here a full day yet.

Even if given weapons and taught fighting techniques, while it might be different after their thoughts settled somewhat, not many people would have the courage to immediately leave safe areas and fight enemies trying to kill them.

How long had he been picking out particularly gloomy-looking people among such people when noisy sounds were heard from far away.

Yuseong unconsciously turned his gaze and couldn’t help letting out an impressed sound.

A man walking while carrying a blue goblin corpse on his back.

It was the first moment something besides wolves had been hunted.

This wasn’t a one-time occurrence.

As the sun set, the number of people carrying other monsters began increasing one by one.

“……”

And on this day, Yuseong memorized the faces of everyone who succeeded in hunting monsters besides wolves.