What Happened in the Tent Camp 1
The market street spread across the 35th floor was of better quality than expected, though it came with the downside of having to spend a bit more money.
Well, these were merchants who'd hired adventurers and stuck right next to the temple to come in — they weren't some half-baked small fry. Rather than peddling cheap junk at inflated prices, you could practically feel their mindset of gladly prying open the wallets of any Upper-grade adventurers who might show up.
"The quality isn't as bad as I thought."
"Oh my, the fruit is quite fresh. Hard to believe it was purchased inside the Tower."
From the whetstones, cloth, and sword oil Katie had purchased first, to the fruit offered for a taste to Irene in her nun's habit — the goods overall were mid-to-upper grade or better. That was probably why the adventurers showed no hesitation in opening their wallets.
We got to cook hot soup and stew every meal thanks to Han Se-ah's inventory, but ordinary adventurers lived on jerky and dried fruit. Even dried fruit was fairly expensive, so if you were Lower-grade rather than Intermediate-grade, you'd soak brick-hard biscuits with jerky in water and eat that.
So even though it wasn't mealtime, the faces of adventurers huddled around a rough wooden table in front of a large tent, gulping down soup, were full of happiness. Hunting on the 34th floor and resting comfortably on the 35th — was that the approach?
"Hmm… still, I think the meals Irene makes would taste better."
"True, Unnie's cooking is better than most inn food."
Past the general store selling whetstones, oil, and rope, past the makeshift inn where people were gulping soup at an odd hour, what came into view was a large man replacing the lacing on old leather armor in front of a tent. Looking at it, it seemed like a makeshift smithy that did simple armor repairs and maintenance — which left me speechless.
I mean, hadn't the 35th floor only been opened a few days ago? Humanity had only cleared up to the 43rd floor, and they just waltzed onto the 35th without any hesitation?
Sure, it was just wooden boxes and tables set up in front of large tents, but with a general store, inn, smithy, and temple — how was this any different from a village? Charging without hesitation into a place where even Intermediate-grade adventurers could easily lose their lives… I guess merchants needed talent too.
"Look at that, Katie. Looks like they repair equipment. Don't you want to check it out?"
"Looking at the lack of a bellows or anvil, it's probably just maintenance on old armor. What he's doing now is just replacing loosened lacing with new ones. And my blade only has a bit of human oil on it — not enough to need repairs."
Walking the market street while looking at this makeshift village that had ballooned overnight, a strange feeling began to settle over me.
I'd quit at the 37th floor because the food supply was so bad I was gnawing on a palm-sized scrap of jerky and a fist-sized flour biscuit a day until I got sick of the whole thing — and now a market had opened on the 35th floor where adventurers were slurping hot soup like it was gukbap.
Honestly, boss monsters going berserk with sudden power-ups was familiar, and gates I could write off as mages creating magic tools vaguely resembling modern conveniences. A lot had changed with the player Han Se-ah's appearance, but the scene before my eyes hit the hardest.
How should I put it — the feeling of a mountain climber who'd risked his life scaling a treacherous peak, only to find a cable car installed at the summit and tourists scarfing down instant ramen? I wasn't really losing anything, but the feeling was strange somehow.
"By the way, I thought a market with nothing but tents wouldn't have much, but they've got everything."
"I smelled something savory, and look — there's even a shop that brought a makeshift oven to bake bread. Shall we pair freshly baked bread with the soup for dinner tonight? I wonder if putting fresh bread in Hanna's inventory would preserve it?"
"Given that ingredients don't spoil, fresh bread would probably keep just fine. I didn't buy bread because inventory efficiency was poor, but with a market on the 35th floor now, it might be okay?"
"Hmm… they really do have everything."
While Irene and Han Se-ah discussed whether putting bread in the inventory would keep it warm and how much space it would take, drawn by the savory smell of baking, Grace's gaze turned somewhere else. Wondering what she meant by "they have everything," I looked — and sure enough, there were women who looked unmistakably like prostitutes.
The Goddess Church worshiped a goddess who governed life, and they didn't particularly reject even monsters as living beings. They simply treated monsters and bandits alike as criminals for taking lives.
So whether barmaids sold their bodies on the sly like lucky freeloaders, or prostitutes openly strutted through the red-light districts in the back alleys — the temple didn't particularly interfere.
"Good heavens, prostitutes have come all the way up here?"
"Adventurers who risk their lives fighting are premium customers, after all. …I mean, who else would buy prostitutes in the Adventurer's City if not adventurers? Not that I'm familiar with it myself."
I hurriedly added the explanation as Grace shot me a piercing look, watching the prostitutes flock into a large tent. Prostitutes who'd climbed to the 35th floor under adventurer escort along the path the temple had cleared.
Come to think of it, if there were criminals, wouldn't that be the most likely place?
The idea of the local bakery actually trafficking drugs instead of flour, or the blacksmith maintaining leather armor at the makeshift smithy being the king of the underworld — that was too absurd. It made more sense to assume the pimp who'd brought the prostitutes was connected to the criminals.
The problem was that I couldn't bring up the criminals the quest had mentioned. On the surface, we'd come down briefly to talk with the temple after running into too many bandits, so only Han Se-ah — who'd opened the quest window — knew about the criminals.
"At this rate, it seems like they're planning to build a whole village on the 35th floor. A village inside a city — that's kind of funny."
"Well, villages spring up along paths people travel, and when the population grows they become small towns — isn't that how it works? Though I doubt many people will settle down and live here permanently."
Han Se-ah had nothing particular to say — she'd probably already met plenty of NPC prostitutes while roaming the city to light up her minimap — and the rest of the party, being residents of a medieval fantasy world, didn't seem to think much of it either.
No, Han Se-ah — if the quest window mentioned criminals, shouldn't you be suspicious of the brothel district first…?
"No, fuck — if you're gonna steal, steal lanterns from the red-light district… If your donor name matches your nickname, you're getting a permanent ban line added as of today. Anyway, given the criminal talk, the quest does seem to be over there…. But can I even go to a place like that with the stream on? Actually, last time during the minimap exploration I turned the camera off and checked it out. That place was unstreamable in a whole different sense."
Come to think of it, had Han Se-ah crawled all the way into the city's sewers just to light up her minimap? Places where half-naked prostitutes walked around openly enough to make streaming impossible weren't even properly called slums — they were more like the city's gutters.
No matter how much charity work the temple did, the city wasn't built by lords and serfs — it was built by merchants and citizens. In a world without human rights, a place that ran purely on the logic of money was more brutal to those at the bottom than you'd expect. No welfare, no insurance, and not even the word "human rights" — how were penniless beggars supposed to survive in a place like that?
"Is that an inn for lodging over there? The open lot next to it with all the adventurers seems to be for people with their own tents. What should we do — rest a day and then head up? Or go back to the 36th floor?"
I'd asked because they seemed to be staring at the prostitutes' short outfits, and the party exchanged glances as they deliberated. Having run into so many bandits, the time had gotten vaguely late, so the dilemma was inevitable. If we went back up, searching for a place to rest on the 36th floor and running into monsters would leave us short on sleep; if we just rested, it was still early evening and felt a bit wasteful.
Looking out for each other with that "I'm fine, but Unnie might be tired~" kind of consideration, the party members gave small nods and answered.
"Let's rest for a day. We've dealt with so many scoundrels who rejected the Goddess's will — it would be best to rest and head up tomorrow."
"Right. Katie fought a lot of people too, so you never know."
"I'm fine, but even if we go up now, I don't think we'd make any gains today. And the unnies are all being considerate."
At their answers, Han Se-ah's expression brightened in a peculiar way. Apparently, if anyone had suggested going up, she'd been planning to make various excuses and infiltrate the brothel district.
But even for a quest — would infiltration even work?
This was a medieval fantasy world where black hair felt exotic. Looking at the party alone — Irene and I were blond, Katie was silver-haired, and Grace had glossy gray hair. An exotic black-haired beauty of a mage, a glamorous beauty of an archer, a blonde beauty of a nun, and a silver-haired noble young lady. If this combination could infiltrate a brothel district, that would be a four-person thief party. I doubted robes would solve anything.