Pyramid Excavation Support Application (3)
The next morning, the final list of successful applicants was posted without delay.
I stood out proudly on the successful applicants list.
But my worst fears came true.
Thanks to their outstanding traits, Yoo Ji-min and Ki Ju-hye had also passed.
Damn it.
But upon thinking it over, there was no real reason to worry.
Practical classes always involved the professor in charge, and tower excavations were conducted under the ironclad protection of the partnering guild.
So there was no need for me to look after the other students.
On the very first day of the course, I headed to the designated waypoint right in front of Gwanghwamun.
“Alright, now we will take attendance.”
For the practical class ‘Tower Pyramid Excavation,’ several professors from various universities would rotate duties until the excavation was complete.
The first to start was Professor Seok Dong-mi, the youngest among them.
From our perspective, having our own faculty member lead the early sessions was a relief.
“Ki Ju-hye!”
“Yes!”
“Yoo Ji-min!”
“Yes!”
“Hwang Geumpa!”
“Yes!”
After attendance was called, Professor Seok Dong-mi gave a brief overview of the course before moving on to group assignments.
“There are twenty-nine attendees today, so grouping is simple enough. We’ll make ten groups of three each. Should we assign groups freely, or draw lots?”
Ki Ju-hye shouted as if she had been waiting for exactly this.
“Free! Free! Free is best!”
That was always the ridiculous part of these kinds of methods.
People who wanted to be picked struggled to express strong preference because it felt like betraying the classmates they would be working with.
Those who favored free choice could voice their desires freely, as Ki Ju-hye was doing now.
So the conclusion was inevitable: free choice would overwhelmingly prevail.
“Wonderful! I’ll cut the time to ten minutes, so everyone please form your groups of three!”
At that moment, Ki Ju-hye ran over and locked my arm in a firm hold.
“I’m definitely going with Geumpa!”
Yoo Ji-min smiled brightly and said, “Let me in too.”
Ki Ju-hye looked at me and asked, “What should I do? Shall I put you in our group, or not?”
At that instant, graduate student Shin Gi-seok approached our side and addressed Yoo Ji-min.
“Excuse me, Miss Yoo Ji-min?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“If you haven’t found a group yet, would you like to join our 1st group? It’ll be me and my junior, and you’ll be able to enjoy the class comfortably.”
Shin Gi-seok spoke with a shovel resting casually on his shoulder, looking like he belonged to some expensive class.
Yoo Ji-min shook her head with a gentle smile and replied, “I’m sorry, but I have friends here. I’ll work with my friends. Please excuse me.”
“Is that so? You’ll regret it later.”
The guy shot me a glance, let out a short laugh, and walked away.
What the hell? That prick is seriously irritating me.
Soon we climbed the stairs from the lobby and headed toward the first floor of the tower.
From there, we began the trek to the excavation site under the escort of the designated partnering guild, the Empire Guild.
“It’s good that the pyramid appeared not too far from the first-floor entrance. So the hunters from the Empire Guild won’t suffer too much.”
Professor Seok Dong-mi’s words.
I asked, “So the partnering guild for this excavation… was the Empire Guild?”
“Yes. Knowing they’re the top guild in the country makes me feel at ease.”
Damn it.
It was true that they were the best guild.
But for some reason, a strange unease settled in my chest.
Jang Pomi… that violent girl… I couldn’t shake the thought of her.
A short while later, we reached the pyramid.
“Wow!”
“It’s enormous!”
“I can’t see the top!”
A massive pyramid of one hundred chambers completely blocked one section of the first floor.
The spectacle before our eyes was more imposing than I had imagined.
The edge of one side alone was so vast that it was barely visible.
“The base of one side measures a staggering three hundred and fifteen meters. It’s larger than King Khufu’s pyramid in Egypt, and among all the pyramids ever discovered inside towers worldwide, it’s the biggest!”
“Whoa!”
“This is insane!”
“This monstrous structure has nearly swallowed the entire first floor of the tower?”
“Professor, can we only enter the pyramid from the first floor?”
“Not necessarily. Right now we’ve only opened the first floor, but once the second floor of the pyramid is revealed, we’ll be able to open passageways from the second floor of the tower as well.”
“I see. The number of pyramid floors is linked to the tower floors.”
“Exactly. The pyramid is created based on the internal skeleton of the tower.”
We passed through the narrow entrance of the pyramid and stepped inside.
All the students wore tense expressions.
Yoo Ji-min looked the calmest, while Ki Ju-hye was already extremely nervous.
The moment we entered the pyramid, a trial appeared in everyone’s status windows.
[▼The first-floor trial of the pyramid is now in progress.]
Objective: Cooperate with everyone to locate the path to the next floor of the pyramid.
Essential
① Find one hundred fragments from the one hundred stone chambers on the first floor of the pyramid.
② Reconstruct the Painted Pottery of Blessing using the one hundred fragments excavated from the first floor.
Optional
① Open the cover stone at the pyramid entrance.
② Seal all one hundred mummies into the stone coffins. (Clear 100/100)
★Reward★: Painted Pottery of Blessing
“Everyone, have you checked the trial?”
“Yes, Professor!”
“Good. The optional tasks one and two have already been handled by the Empire Guild hunters, so students don’t need to worry about them at all. What do we have to do?”
“Find the one hundred fragments!”
“That’s right. Look over there.”
A large glass display case stood near the pyramid entrance, filled with dazzling fragments of the Painted Pottery of Blessing painted in golden hues.
“There are one hundred fragments in total, but I’ve only found thirteen so far. From now on, you all have to work hard.”
“What should we do?”
“Each group will be assigned one chamber starting today. You will dig there thoroughly for the next week and extract the fragments. Every chamber contains a stone coffin with a mummy sealed inside, but as long as you stay within the marked safety line, there won’t be any major problems.”
I raised my hand and asked, “What if we finish digging faster than a week?”
Professor Seok Dong-mi smiled and replied, “If a group finds the fragments quickly, they can naturally move on to the next chamber and keep looking. The chambers are arranged like a Go board in a straight line. But in reality, finding the fragments within a week won’t be that easy?”
“Haha, that’s probably true.”
“As long as you find them quickly, no one will complain. You’ll earn a lot of money too. The performance bonus per fragment is six million won, so keep that in mind.”
“What? That much?”
“The Painted Pottery of Blessing has already been sold at auction for one hundred and twenty billion won. That’s why the assigned bonus per fragment has become quite high. Since it’s three people per group, you’ll earn two million won every time you find one.”
Hearing about such an attractive bonus made all the students excited.
It felt as though a single shovel planted in the chamber floor would cause fragments to erupt at any moment.
Yoo Ji-min, Ki Ju-hye, and I formed a group of three and were assigned one chamber.
The size of the chamber was thirty meters by thirty meters, as described.
The walls and ceiling were stone, but the floor was sand.
“One hundred of these chambers make up the first floor of the pyramid.”
“Each chamber has one fragment of the Painted Pottery of Blessing.”
Yoo Ji-min and Ki Ju-hye checked the stone coffins and said, “As long as we don’t touch that, the mummies won’t come out.”
I used my trait right away.
“I’ll try it out.”
Ki Ju-hye dropped to the floor like a dog and began sniffing the ground.
Her trait The Scent of Relics was about to take effect.
I asked, “How is it? Can you tell roughly where it is?”
Ki Ju-hye looked puzzled and said, “It seems to be somewhere around here, but I can’t be more precise. Maybe because my level is still low.”
Even that much reduced the digging area to one-tenth.
Ki Ju-hye is unexpectedly helpful?
“Alright, let’s dig!”
I started shoveling carefully, fearing I might damage the fragments.
Yoo Ji-min picked up her guitar and began singing a heartfelt song.
Ki Ju-hye searched carefully in the sand and soil for any fragments.
I deliberately dug one spot more than a meter deep.
[Shovel Luck does not apply inside the pyramid.]
I see.
About an hour passed.
While I dug slowly, Ki Ju-hye glanced at me with narrowed eyes and said, “Ugh, back when you were fighting dogs, you were good at it… but shoveling? Not so much. It looks like I’m faster than you.”
“Really?”
At that moment, excited cheers erupted from outside.
“We got it!”
“They already found a fragment in our group!”
We stepped out of the chamber.
Shin Gi-seok and his junior were walking down the corridor like victors, holding a golden fragment.
“Whoa! Awesome!”
“Amazing.”
“In just ten minutes of starting, you earned two million each!”
“No, that’s a two-person group, so it’s three hundred per person!”
Shin Gi-seok dropped the golden fragment into the glass display case like putting coins in a piggy bank.
Clang!
A crisp sound echoed as more fragments piled up.
[14th fragment collected.]
[86 fragments remain.]
Shin Gi-seok winked at Yoo Ji-min and said, “It’s not too late. Our group is just me and my junior, so there’s always space if you want to join.”
His junior added, “If you stay in that weird group, you might not find even a single fragment by the time the first floor excavation ends!”
Complaints like “Ugh!” burst out from the girls.
“Oppa, will you take us in too?”
“Hiiing, I’m going to 1st group!”
“Damn, our group’s excavating slacker.”
Suddenly, Ki Ju-hye stepped forward and blocked Shin Gi-seok.
“Excuse me, senior!”
Shin Gi-seok looked annoyed and asked, “What?”
“Senior, if I join your group too, will you take me in?”
Ki Ju-hye made a pretty face and blinked rapidly.
Shin Gi-seok pushed her shoulder and said, “Move. I’m busy.”
The other students burst into laughter.
“Hehe.”
“That bitch.”
“Why did she even step forward?”
“Hahaha.”
Ki Ju-hye wiped sweat from her forehead in frustration and said, “I… I have the trait The Scent of Relics… so I can compress the buried area to one-tenth the size.”
Ki Ju-hye suddenly dropped to the floor like a dog and sniffed the ground.
Shin Gi-seok’s expression suddenly changed.
“Really?”
Ki Ju-hye smiled cutely and squatted at his feet, nodding.
“Yup~”
Shin Gi-seok thought for a moment and said, “Then come with me.”
“G, thank you, senior~!”
Before following him, Ki Ju-hye returned to us and said, “Sorry, guys. But if I want to pursue this major, I’ll have to go to K University’s graduate program, so I’m getting to know this senior Shin Gi-seok while I can. You’ll understand, right?”
I nodded with a smile.
“Yeah, I get it. Go and do your best.”
Yoo Ji-min said with a grin, “Hang in there! Let’s make a bet on who finds the most before lunch! I think your group has a good chance though.”
“Thanks! You two are angels! I’ll go now~!”
Ki Ju-hye dashed off to Shin Gi-seok’s group.
Yoo Ji-min and I exchanged glances and smiled without a word.
Back in the chamber, we resumed digging for fragments.
No matter how hard we dug, fragments didn’t come out easily.
I smiled and said, “My shoveling luck is bad. Ji-min, you should go to 1st group before it’s too late. Shin Gi-seok seems to like you, so I bet he’ll take you too.”
Yoo Ji-min suddenly locked my arm and said, “I’m not going. I want to stick with you.”
“Why?”
“There’s a reason.”
Yoo Ji-min spoke playfully, then switched to a slightly serious tone.
“The letter… have you read it yet?”
I pulled out the Luck Compass from my inventory and glanced at it to change the subject.
“Hey, for some reason this place feels suspicious? Let’s dig here, shall we?”
* * *
That afternoon, lunch break arrived.
Everyone stepped outside the entrance and ate lunch together.
Shin Gi-seok and Ki Ju-hye’s group already had three fragments and was in high spirits.
Clang! Clang!
[15th fragment collected.]
[16th fragment collected.]
[84 fragments remain.]
Professor Seok Dong-mi clapped enthusiastically and said, “Everyone, give them applause!”
Clap clap clap clap!
“Whoa! In just half a day they found three fragments! It’s amazing! Even the veteran archaeologists would find it difficult!”
Shin Gi-seok scratched his head and said, “It’s all thanks to the professor.”
The students looked genuinely impressed.
“Whoa, that group is really something.”
“But Shin Gi-seok’s shoveling is amazing too, and that Ki Ju-hye woman is a complete scam. She reduces a thirty-square-meter area to just three square meters.”
“She bought the best rune stone thanks to her boyfriend? Damn, the world where archaeologists can’t even make money without cash has become too harsh!”
Ki Ju-hye came over to our side and said, “Hehe, I’ll cook a course dinner for you guys tonight! I’ve already earned four million! What about you? Did you sell the fragments already?”
Yoo Ji-min answered with a slightly gloomy expression, “Um.”
“The stiff face means you haven’t found any fragments yet?”
“That’s not… I just feel guilty.”
“What do you mean by guilty?”
“I sang a few songs without doing much work and earned too much money, right?”
“What are you talking about? Earned too much money?”
At that moment, I was pushing fragments into the glass display case in front of us.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
[17th fragment collected.]
[18th fragment collected.]
[19th fragment collected.]
[20th fragment collected.]
[21st fragment collected.]
[22nd fragment collected.]
[23rd fragment collected.]
[77 fragments remain.]