Chapter 161
Chapter 161
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 161
Chapter Title: How to Steal the Protagonist's Woman
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'Turn Han Bom into a Red Summoner? Why?'
>
For now, I'll display that woman's traits.
In this incomprehensible situation, Armonia promptly displayed her traits.
Notably, her level was high for someone living in this village.
Plus, if she'd come down from the upper floors like those ringleaders, she wasn't ordinary even up there.
Even with reduced levels, she must've been pretty high up originally.
'She totally gives off full-on ninja vibes.'
[Be careful. Staring too openly might trigger her stealth detection.]
Her stealth detection was only 1 level below mine.
And in a quiet spot like this, it'd be even easier to get caught.
I held my breath as much as possible and eavesdropped on the shady group's conversation.
"But how do we report to the boss, when he arrives..."
"Taking the inn and pressuring them was just part of the plan. But this screw-up is real..."
The woman showed her displeasure openly on her face.
She looked like a frail girl amid rough men, but from the talk, she seemed to be the leader of the ringleaders.
"S-sorry! I-I didn't expect that guy to be so strong..."
"Shut up."
"S-sorry."
Troll Vibe, unlike his bravado earlier against me, was completely cowed, bowing and scraping to her.
That woman... definitely wasn't ordinary.
She asked Troll Vibe,
"First, tell me about that guy from earlier."
"W-well... We dueled, and..."
Troll Vibe recounted every humiliating detail without omission.
"An arrow hit my leg then, and I passed out."
"How long did it take?"
"...About 15 minutes to massacre us all."
"..."
The woman crossed her arms and fell silent after hearing it all.
The men beside her started flustering with confused expressions.
"Does that make sense? A guy who just hit Floor 1 does that?"
"I heard balance adjustments stopped monsters like that from coming."
"Maybe..."
All eyes turned to one man.
"He ate a hidden piece?"
"On Floor 0?"
"It's Floor 0, so it could have one."
"True... Once you leave, you can't go back, so if he stumbled on it by chance..."
They all nodded in agreement.
I chuckled inwardly.
'Now that I think about it, a world like this would have hidden pieces.'
Maybe I could preempt ones others find using Han Yeo-reum's regression later.
"Anyway, we've confirmed he's way above us. The issue is how to deal with him..."
"Th-that... I have something to say."
"What?"
"Among the new comrades, there's that parasite-like tall, skinny bastard, right?"
I knew exactly who.
"Han Yeo-reum?"
"Yes. That guy... joined the duel earlier."
"...? Didn't you say only Seong Su-ho fought? So two on a team..."
"No. He came to our side and fought."
"...?"
They all looked puzzled, and Troll Vibe explained his guess about Han Yeo-reum's and my relationship.
"He seemed to hate him a ton."
"...Even from afar, they looked on bad terms. If it's that bad... perfect."
Snap!
The woman snapped her fingers crisply, like an idea had struck her.
At that moment, three masked figures rushed from the woods, knelt, and bowed before her.
The masks hid everything—no way to tell gender or build.
But they had one difference from us.
Oh, Red Summoners on Floor 1 too.
"..."
All three had red diamonds spinning above their heads, indicating their danger level.
But even as Red Summoners, their power was below the woman's, on par with the men.
I asked Gay Peepee what I was curious about through the channel chat.
"There are no penalties for killing Red Summoners, right?"
Yeah, you even get points for bounties and their own points transfer over.
He explained you couldn't take their items, though.
The woman commanded the masked ones gravely.
"Secretly contact that Han Yeo-reum guy. At night where no one's around, or in the field."
"..."
The masks just nodded and vanished into the woods.
"Is that really necessary?"
They could've just talked openly... What a showoff.
Probably because they're fucked if they're caught lol. Inside the village, it's legal to kill Red Summoners.
It meant they were people who could never live a peaceful life.
But seeing how she handled such people so thoroughly, it seemed Yang Ji-hyeon was no ordinary woman.
"Dismissed for today. Behave yourselves for a while."
"""Yes."""
"Um..."
As the men bowed and answered, one piped up.
"M-my points are all gone..."
"..."
Not just the men—even the woman glared at Troll Vibe irritably.
She gave him a pathetic look and said,
"You guys handle him."
"...Yes."
The men left with dissatisfied faces but proper responses.
The next morning, I headed to the field with Min Ha-yeon for hunting.
Unlike me, who was wobbling from exhaustion, she looked refreshed and hunted energetically.
I gazed at her wearily, recalling last night.
'One day off, and she tries to drain me dry...'
[You're continuously recovering stamina, so you won't die of dehydration.]
'...That's even scarier.'
After eavesdropping, I'd returned to drinking.
Drunken Min Ha-yeon dragged me to the room for mad, wild sex.
No joke—no normal human could satisfy her except me.
Unless you're a monster endlessly producing semen...
I was only able to endure because I recovered using Enel.
During our leisurely morning hunt, the sound of an argument echoed from the village entrance.
"Fuck, if you interfere one more time, I won't let you off!"
"Hahaha! And what are you going to do if you don't let me off?"
Curious, Min Ha-yeon and I headed there. A crowd we hadn't seen before had gathered, blocking Han Bom's comrades in the field.
Han Bom was cursing them out fiercely.
I, Min Ha-yeon, Han Bom, and her companions gathered in the inn's dining area and began to talk.
"At this rate, it's going to be a real problem...."
"Right. Now we need at least a thousand points per person, and we can't maintain the inn for more than a few days."
Just as they had barely seized the inn, pressure began to come from other sources.
Groups hunting in other areas had encroached.
"Those sons of bitches...."
"Bom-ah, calm down."
Hunting grounds are public goods.
Since they belong to no one, anyone can hunt as they wish, and interference is possible.
Moreover, the newcomers this time also had level differences, so they easily lost their prey to that group.
"Some of the others are already suggesting we start sharing rooms again."
"..."
It was obvious that if they gave up the inn they had worked so hard to capture and started sharing rooms again, the inn would be lost in an instant..
But point shortages bred anxiety you couldn't just suppress.
To save the points received from Han Bom, situations might arise where they would have to share rooms.
As we pondered solutions, one woman spoke confidently.
"Let's try going to another village."
It was Yang Ji-hyun from the shady group yesterday.
Min Ha-yeon looked at her surprised and asked,
"There are other villages?"
"Yes. About 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock directions from here."
"Wait! Then they have inns too?"
"Yes, I heard there are plenty of inns."
At Yang Ji-hyeon's words, Min Ha-yeon looked excited and said to the others.
"Then why don't you go? If we go right now...."
"We... can't go there."
"Huh?"
Han Bom doused her excitement.
Seeing Han Bom's gloom, Min Ha-yeon asked puzzled,
"Why not? Is it too far?"
"It takes about three days walking."
"Eh! It's far, but doable..."
"Distance isn't the problem..."
"...?"
Min Ha-yeon and I looked at each other, wondering what she meant, and glanced around.
Except for the woman who had mentioned the villages, the others also bowed their heads with gloomy expressions like Han Bom.
Han Bom explained to the bewildered Min Ha-yeon and me.
"As soon as you leave the village, Red Summoners pounce on you."
She began a proper explanation.
There are supposedly three villages in total on the 1st floor.
And when you first come to the 1st floor from the 0th floor, you are forcibly brought to this village.
The distance between villages is roughly a three-day walk.
The problem is that Red Summoners lie in ambush between the villages, indiscriminately killing any Summoner who passes by.
"...I almost died once when I went with some other people."
"My god...."
"But fortunately, Yang Ji-hyeon-ssi over there helped me, and I was barely able to survive."
"...."
Yang Ji-hyeon, who had saved Han Bom from the brink of death at the hands of Red Summoners.
A woman who had formed a bond and remained by her side.
If I only heard that, I would think it was a coincidence, but having already heard the murky conversation yesterday, I couldn't view it as such.
I looked at the woman named Yang Ji-hyeon and spoke with Armonia.
'As I thought, there's something going on, right?'
[It is definitely not a coincidence. However, it is a mystery why she wants to make Han Bom a Red Summoner.]
'Exactly, I'm curious.'
Honestly, I didn't care what that woman did, but if it involved Han Bom, it seemed necessary to keep an eye on it.
Yang Ji-hyeon began speaking again.
"If we keep losing our hunting grounds like this, things could become even more serious later."
"But the risk is...."
Han Bom couldn't easily make a decision.
The threat of swarming Red Summoners was on a completely different level than the threat of monsters.
Unless an out-of-spec monster like Shock Bee appeared, a group of monsters could usually be handled by two or three Summoners.
But when the opponent is human, the story changes.
Moreover, the opponents are Red Summoners.
Since they are experts in killing people, ordinary Summoners are inevitably at a disadvantage in a fight.
One might think they could just go as a group and overpower them with numbers.
But Red Summoners are undoubtedly specialized in guerrilla warfare, and there was a high possibility of ending up on a route to total annihilation.
While everyone remained silent with troubled minds, Yang Ji-hyeon spoke up.
"I'm not suggesting we walk to the village."
"Don't tell me...."
"...?"
Han Bom looked troubled, while Min Ha-yeon and I looked at Yang Ji-hyeon with questioning expressions.
Yang Ji-hyeon spoke with a determined expression.
"Let's go through the dungeon."
***
"Fuck.... I'm going to kill him one day...."
Han Yeo-reum spat out curses, breathing heavily in front of a monster's carcass.
Even while fighting just one creature, he had teetered on the edge of danger several times.
Han Yeo-reum had failed to gather sufficient points in Zephyrum, and as a result, he hadn't been able to raise a single stat.
Despite this, the reason he risked his life hunting alone was because of the driving force that was Seong Su-ho.
He judged that luck alone would not be enough to destroy the man who had given him the greatest humiliation of his life.
"Ability... first, the stats...."
Normally, he should have been hunting with the trio of women.
However, they too had been strangely distancing themselves from him since yesterday.
But Han Yeo-reum didn't care about that.
He only focused on gathering points so that when the opportunity to seize Seong Su-ho's weakness and drive him to despair arrived, he would not miss it.
"Hunting alone is hard... but items are definitely dropping in abundance.... If I convert these into points...."
It was while he was obsessing over points and searching for the next monster.
A wolf-like monster appeared, and he was just about to dash forward to fight it.
"Die! Uh, huh!?"
While Han Yeo-reum was charging, other people lunged in and killed the monster in an instant.
He flared up in rage, spitting curses as he watched the people steal the monster.
"You fucking bastards, you're stealing mine!?"
Only after Han Yeo-reum approached the opponent to grab them by the collar did he realize something was wrong.
'These bastards... red on their heads....'
Han Yeo-reum could tell at a glance that they were Red Summoners.
One of the masked figures spoke.
"Are you Han Yeo-reum?"
"...I don't see any reason why I should tell you that."
Han Yeo-reum thought to himself with a sense of anxiety.
'Fuck... even if I die, I need to convert my points and level up first.... Let's bolt!'
It was the moment he turned around to flee.
The three masked figures leaped instantly and surrounded Han Yeo-reum.
"God damn it!"
"Wait. We have something to say."
"I have nothing to say to you!"
It was the moment Han Yeo-reum tried to swing his sword in desperation.
"Seong Su-ho."
"What?"
At the sudden mention of the name, Han Yeo-reum stopped his sword.
The masked man looked at the stopped sword and spoke quietly.
"We will eliminate that man for you."