The Shovel Dig on the 0th Floor Turns Out to Be a Hit! (1)
**BACKTICK**CHAPTER_TITLE: My Digging Day Turned Out to Be a Monster Hit! (1) **BACKTICK**
I snapped awake suddenly.
No overthinking. There was no way something this good was going to fall into my lap so easily.
And even if it did, level 20 was no joke.
You rush the start, but the later levels take time. Leveling up is earned over years of hunters risking their lives. That's reality.
Yet even as these thoughts hit, my digging somehow gave me a rush of excitement.
Anyway.
I just needed to make it to level 4 and everything would be clear.
One, one, two, three, five, eight...
Or one, one, two, two, three, three...
Bang! Bang!
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa—
At the end of that day I had dug every single one of the twenty-four pits down to one meter, then dragged my rag-doll body back home.
Next time I had to pump up my stamina too. Hah, huff...
* * *
The next day I woke up around noon, bought a bowl of samgyetang, and headed straight for the used tower.
I casually sold the random items I had picked up yesterday.
"We don't take those."
"Huh? Why?"
"They're for climbing—ropes, carabiners... stuff like that. Have you ever seen a hunter actually climbing in the tower, kid?"
Sure, at first there were pioneers who tried scaling the outer and inner walls.
But they all ended up bald, organs melting, dead in a miserable way.
Turns out the outer and inner walls of the tower from floor 0 to the top are packed with deadly toxins. Anything that sticks to them dies fast.
Climbing is impossible in the tower.
So why were climbing tools dropping like candy?
At first I thought the transparent suction straws falling was just insane luck.
No way.
The system looking into the future and handing me items like that?
Not happening.
But if it was, I'd have to climb eventually.
Was there some kind of hole down deep into the basement of floor 0?
I decided to prepare just in case.
First I checked the inventory. It was getting full because luck items kept dropping.
"The price isn't much different between used and new?"
"Originally it's drawn. Doesn't sell well."
I had no choice but to shell out 7.5 million won for a 16-slot space backpack. The backpack was heavier and less comfortable than a belt, but it gave great value and could hold heavier stuff.
Done.
Combined with the belt that made roughly 32 slots—space shortages should be a thing of the past for a while.
Next.
I headed straight to the Rune Stone Trading Post of K-Tem.
Thousands of kinds of Rune Stones waited there at wildly different prices for hunters or hunter hopefuls.
S-grade Rune Stones worth billions.
Down to cheap F-grade junk stones for just a few million...
The Rune Stone section had big labels from left to right: S, A, B, C, D...
Without hesitation I headed for the F-grade side.
"Hunter-nim, what kind of Rune Stone are you looking for?"
"Climbing-related Rune Stone, please."
"Huh? Ah, climbing?"
The clerk's eyes widened in surprise.
Was she crazy with death?
"Just for entering the tower for a bit. I want to use it as a tower pass."
"Ah, I see. Understood. Shall I show you the cheapest?"
"Show me all the climbing-related ones."
"Got it."
A short while later I chose.
[Acquired Rune Stone: Tower Wall Climbing Even If You Die.]
Classification: Normal
Grade: F-grade
Description: Improves your ability to climb walls.
: Gains basic wall-climbing ability.
Rune Stones let you unlock abilities matching your current level when absorbed.
So absorbing this one would instantly make me a beginner wall-climber.
"I'll take this one."
"Here you go."
The price was only around 8 million won because it was an unused climbing-type stone.
Normal people who liked climbing sometimes picked these up, but even then, without tower leveling they couldn't level climbing skills much, so they weren't super attractive.
I absorbed the Rune Stone the second I got it.
Puuuuu—
The basic slot for each hunter's Rune Stone was 1 + 3. Expanding that slot by even one was insanely hard unless you were already OP, so it was a precious resource I had to guard like my life.
But I decided to invest one slot boldly.
- Slot hoarding loses.
A famous line after the tower rose.
I needed to remember that.
* * *
A week passed like that.
I slept during the day and went to floor 0 at night to dig.
Digging was nothing new since I did it almost every day since childhood, and with the power's help it was a breeze.
At that point I had circled the vast floor 0 and dug nearly everything upside down. The pits were backfilled with the dirt and covered with stone slabs, or the association would have shut me down.
But I hadn't leveled up yet.
My level had climbed to 3, but I was still digging floor 0, so XP wasn't stacking.
"Hello?"
"I can't say hello. Buy me a bottle of soju."
"No, sir. If you want soju, go outside and drink it there."
"I won't go out. I like the tower. At least monsters are better than the scary humans outside."
This was our daily conversation with the homeless hunter Mr. No on floor 0.
"By the way, can you move your spot a little today?"
"Why?"
"I was thinking of digging around here. I've dug everywhere else already."
"Haha, don't dig here."
"Why?"
"There's a reason."
"Explain."
"Ah, I just want a drink of soju."
Yeah, whatever. I made a lot of money; there was no reason I couldn't buy the old man a few bottles.
"Wait a second. I'll go get them."
I stepped outside and came back fast with three bottles of soju and some snacks. When I set the soju and snacks down, Mr. No ignored the food and chugged the soju straight from the bottle.
"Ki-yah~ This is the taste."
"Now tell me."
"There was this guy who walked around floor 0 like you did, digging every day."
"Why was he digging? Did you ask?"
"I did."
"What did he say?"
"He didn't say at first because he was afraid his trait would be revealed. But later when we got close and had a few drinks, he confessed."
"What did he say?"
Mr. No finished the bottle in one go.
"Ah! I want another bottle."
I pulled another from the inventory and handed it over.
"That guy said every time he dug his stats would rise. So he said he was digging in the safe floor 0."
Whoa!
Such a jackpot Rune Stone!
"So what happened?"
"That's what I thought. One day he was digging somewhere near here and suddenly..."
Suddenly?
"Ah, I want another bottle. I'll drink it later."
I handed over the last bottle.
"Hurry and tell me."
"Suddenly... while digging inside the deep inner part he screamed and fell somewhere... into the depths of the ground..."
My mind flashed.
A sinkhole.
The story about a huge void down here.
"So what happened? Did you report it?"
"Are you stupid? Even on floor 0 this place is still the tower's extraterritorial zone. Where would I report?"
True.
"Where was the exact location?"
"I don't know. I can't remember. Around there, maybe."
I looked at the spot Mr. No pointed to with his cane.
Sure enough.
Unlike the other pits it had dug a large enough hole for a person to pass through and it plunged deep.
"Was this the hole the man dug?"
"Yeah. Probably."
I took out the fluorescent rod I had stored from a random luck item, snapped it, and tossed it down.
The rod fell all the way until it hit the bottom at around 3 meters. From the surface it just looked like a normal 3-meter pit.
"There doesn't seem to be a hole big enough for a person to fall into."
"I don't know either. Don't ask me."
The only way to find out was to go down into the pit.
Of course it was dangerous.
But I couldn't just cover it with the slabs now.
There was food down there.
A level-up Rune Stone from digging...
A jackpot Rune Stone!
I immediately started preparing for the descent.
According to the internet, 80% of wall-climbing accidents weren't from climbing but from falling. Falling looked easy but one small mistake could end your life.
After checking the anchor's fixed state twice or three times, I clipped on the harness and started the descent.
Most of the gear was already eaten by random luck items, and though I was still clumsy, I had learned basic climbing skills so I wasn't hesitant.
"Watch your step."
"Got it, sir."
When I got close to the bottom I pulled the shovel from my waist and poked the ground. It felt surprisingly solid. But the wall right beside it was different.
Thud, crash—
When I touched it the loose dirt wall collapsed in a rumble and I was gifted a slanted opening into the abyss.
After the hunter fell, the wall had gently crumbled and the gap had been filled just enough.
I stared down into the abyss.
Of course the first emotion I felt was fear.
I had to shove my body into a pit where even an inch of safety wasn't guaranteed.
But a clear goal always boosts the will.
Let's go.
To the Rune Stone.
I turned on my headlamp and scraped the outer wall of the hole I had to descend. The outer wall was extremely hard. Meaning at least it wouldn't crumble and kill me.
I slipped one foot in, then the other, and pushed my body into the narrow pit.
Halfway through I felt a vague sense of unease.
A person could even die falling into such a narrow hole?
But I decided I could probably pass if I went through the narrow entrance.
The hole slanted downward and the surface was extremely slippery. It had no proper support, so once you started sliding you would fall forever.
And there was another problem.
Eeeeeeee—
A drill wouldn't fit into the wall.
The hardness of the wall was beyond imagination.
It was probably the same material the association called "absolute object."
I couldn't find a single crack on the wall even after looking around.
It was impossible to secure.
Meaning if the rope broke even once it would be hard to climb back up.
I adjusted the rappel device and slowly lowered myself.
The flash of the light showed only the same scene over and over.
After descending about 10 meters a white floor appeared far ahead around 15 meters.
And on that floor...
There it was.
A jackpot, a Rune Stone!
Wow!
I felt relief. If the bottom was this close, the chance of dying from falling was lower.
Hurry and grab the jackpot Rune Stone and get out of this creepy place.
But...
When I got closer, it wasn't the floor.
I touched the white substance I had mistaken for the floor.
My hand sank in and something stuck to my glove.
It was a sticky, spiderweb-like substance.
Damn it.
Were there bugs living in this cave?
What?
The more serious part was that the Rune Stone was located about 2 meters below the spiderweb area.
To absorb it I had no choice but to enter that terrifying spiderweb space.
Wait.
If the Rune Stone is down there...
Then the dead hunter died at that exact point...
Was he caught in the spiderweb and died?
Or was some monster bug coming up from the depths?
Either way, I couldn't just leave the jackpot Rune Stone right in front of me and go back up.
I put on my goggles and mask, then descended a little more.
I sank into the sticky space from my boots to my calves to my thighs to my waist.
It felt gross but I held it in and shook my body later.
And when I had descended about 1 meter an unexpected lucky message appeared.
[Descended 1m.]
[Trait Digging Luck has granted you gold.]
[1m × 0 floor × 2 = 0 gold]
[Failed to acquire gold.]
Huh?
This also counted as descending?
[Trait Digging Luck has granted you a random luck item.]
[Acquired Marlboro Red cigarette.]
A cigarette?
Why a cigarette?
Anyway my main interest wasn't there.
The sticky substance was now up to my neck.
I took a deep breath and pushed my head into the dense spiderweb.
And a little deeper I finally reached the point where I could touch the jackpot Rune Stone.
[Acquired Rune Stone: My Own Digging Development.]
Classification: Rare
Grade: F-grade
Description: Grants stats every time you dig in the tower.
: 0.015 stat points per 1m dug.
[Do you wish to absorb this Rune Stone?]
Absorb Store Discard