⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
The Rune Stone you obtained is [Earthworm Rune Stone].
Classification: Cursed
Grade: F
Overview: Allows you to maintain normal condition without eating, drinking, or sleeping.
Curse: Cannot leave the tower or ascend to the first floor.
To lift the curse, raise your level five times.
Would you like to absorb this Rune Stone?
Absorb Store Discard
[Earthworm Centipede] summary appears.
Classification: Insect
Grade: F
Overview: Weak poison, barely affects humans outside the body. Injecting the poison can kill low-class hunters.
Spawn location: Floors 1–25
Weakness: Light, nicotine, borax, toothpaste.
Function: Excellent at digging underground.
Extra info: Popular among foodies because they’re considered a delicacy. Yet they’re almost invisible in the tower, so even though they’re F-class they fetch high prices. The Queen Earthworm Centipede is especially pricey.
Oh. They really exist.
High prices?
How much?
Price list:
Wild Earthworm Centipede: 1.02 million won per kg
Earthworm Centipede: 420,000 won per kg
Queen Earthworm Centipede: Price unavailable
What? Four hundred twenty thousand won per kilo?
Is this real?
I started spinning my head.
According to my inventory, a full-grown Earthworm Centipede weighed about five kilos each.
Of course. At least five times bigger than King Crab.
That meant one Earthworm Centipede was worth roughly two million won.
I’m losing my mind!
I only killed a hundred yesterday and that was already five hundred or more…
Two million times five hundred equals 1.05 billion!
“Hey… are you okay, hunter?”
“What? Why?”
“You were suddenly dancing around while looking at the screen…”
“Haha, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
The division clerk stared at me like I was crazy and turned away.
My heart started pounding again.
1.05 billion?
I wanted to sprint back to the zero floor right that second and haul every centipede carcass to the market.
But…
If I dumped them all today the price would crash.
When you have a high-value item you have to be patient and sell in small batches.
But leaving the bodies to rot…
My head was spinning so I decided to start with the three live ones and five carcasses I brought in today.
“I’m selling three Earthworm Centipedes. They’re alive.”
The clerk immediately brought over a pathetic plastic enclosure.
“Put them straight from inventory.”
“U-um… will this work? These guys burrow through dirt like crazy.”
“What are you talking about? Earthworm Centipedes dig through soil fine but they can’t pierce even thin plastic. And if the poison never enters the body it’s harmless.”
Suddenly it clicked.
That made sense.
The absolute bedrock beneath the zero floor, according to Hunter Association reports, could not be damaged by any physical or magical force.
I had wrongly assumed the centipedes’ poison could melt it.
But the truth was simpler: they could only dissolve that one absolute object.
The Hunter Association probably never imagined this F-class poison could melt bedrock either.
Hehe.
Thinking I was the only one who knew a secret the whole world was blind to gave me a weird feeling.
The three live centipedes were sent straight to the plastic enclosure from my inventory. The scale read 16.4 kilos total.
“One million six hundred seventy-two thousand eight hundred won. After two percent fee that’s one million six hundred thirty-nine thousand three hundred forty won.”
The five carcasses had 22.6 kilos because one baby got trapped in the inventory. Still, nine million three hundred thousand won.
In the blink of an eye my account swelled to 25.7 million won.
“Hunter, congratulations! Whoa, I’m jealous! You earned almost a full year’s salary in one day?”
“Nah, it was just pure luck…”
Not a full year’s salary in one day. It was a star KBO player’s salary in one day.
I burst out of the bank and sprinted to the used tower shop. One light just to cross the street but my hands were shaking with excitement.
“S-Sir! Give me the biggest inventory you have!”
“What’s all the fuss? You catch a gold toad?”
“Haha, no way. I’m a tower scavenger, not a level-thirty gold toad.”
“Don’t even dream about the most expensive stuff. That’s 12 million.”
“How much capacity?”
“Sixteen by sixteen, two hundred fifty-six slots. Small guild porters use these.”
Shit.
I was walking around like a small guild doing a hundred million won in daily sales now?
“Give it!”
“Huh?”
“I want that one.”
“Hey, do you have the money?”
“I do?”
“And you got 10 million cash just because you’re a tower scavenger?”
“Yesterday I dug up one small truffle.”
The used tower owner eyed me suspiciously, but the second my transfer cleared he handed over the backpack with a jump.
Next I looked for a used truck.
Mana-powered refrigerated cargo van.
After buying one I’d fill it with centipede bodies and start selling in small batches.
Surprisingly the refrigerated vans weren’t that expensive. Three million won could get you a decent one.
This truck was pure civilian and couldn’t enter the tower.
It also had lower security and scaling than belt or backpack mana engines.
Unlike those you couldn’t put living pets inside. You could stuff them in but they’d freeze to death later.
Still, it was a mana engine truck that made pre-tower vehicles look like toys. It kept cargo frozen even if the engine was off.
Of course it burned mana fuel like crazy.
I drove straight to the dealer and closed the deal on the spot.
Fingerprint registration, electronic plate, and nearby public parking pass. No need to visit any government office.
Korea’s specialty in the digital tower era.
The second I pulled the truck into my parking spot near home the excitement, nerves, fear, and pure joy hit all at once.
I was starting a massive business!
Watch this.
I will never let go of this sweet opportunity that fell into my lap by miracle.
The earthworm cave under the zero floor.
I’ll suck every last one dry.
* * *
After parking the truck it was already past ten o’clock when I got home.
That night I prepared everything and drove the truck to Gwanghwamun.
Near Gwanghwamun stood a government tower built just for tower hunters. I parked the truck there and headed straight down to the zero floor.
Fortunately no one was on the zero floor after midnight that night either.
I slid open the stone slab, dropped down, and slammed it shut behind me from below.
Then I doused myself in cigarette juice, clipped a carabiner to my belt, and lowered myself with the descent device.
I even lit a cigarette while falling.
Three hundred meters down was nothing with the device. Think elevator and you’d understand instantly.
The moment I landed the disgusting sight of centipedes tearing apart their own dead kind filled my eyes.
Since there was nothing else to eat down here, they had been surviving this way all along.
But the second I took a drag and flashed my light they all vanished into cracks with a hiss.
I filled two backpacks and two belts with every intact carcass I could find, skipping the half-eaten ones.
The dead bodies piled up so fast the slots filled in seconds: 16 + 16 + 16 + 256.
I had left almost nothing in inventory back home except the absolute essentials, so I was basically maxed out.
I carried the backpack, wore two belts, and tied the second backpack to my thigh.
Then I used the ascent device to climb the walls and reached the zero floor in a flash. Yesterday’s climb took hours; today I flew up with this insane load.
I rushed back to the truck parked nearby and stuffed every centipede I had into the inventory.
Two hundred fifty-six slots held about seventy-six centipedes.
Even after setting aside the already rotting bodies and the ones partially eaten by their own kind, I’d have to make at least ten round trips to empty the cave completely.
No need to greed. Five trips today, five tomorrow. If I overdid it someone might notice.
If some bodies were lost it didn’t matter. The surviving ones would grow fat on their own kind and every last gram would still be my money.
Over the next two days I made eight round trips and scraped almost every earthworm centipede carcass from the zero floor.
The truck held roughly six hundred centipedes.
Some were already chewed up, but the final weight was exactly 3,188 kilos.
At 420,000 won per kilo that was 133 million eight hundred ninety-six thousand won.
Hehehehehe!
Bigger than I expected.
After dropping off the laundry I drove the truck home at dawn and saw high-school kids in their uniforms walking to school.
I rolled down the window and yelled at the top of my lungs.
“Hey! Do you guys know the taste of centipedes? Hahahaha!”
