What Gold Coins Can Buy 4

Han Se-ah was drawing attention from all over the world. That might have been a slight exaggeration, but her gameplay was showing up on places like Reddit overseas, so it was fair to say gamers of every stripe were watching her.

A veteran player's video of hunting an extreme-difficulty boss in nothing but a pair of underwear spreads among gamers regardless of East or West. In the same way, Han Se-ah's footage—more precisely, the footage of Han Se-ah blasting through the Tower faster than anyone else by way of her 6★ Roland—had quietly begun circulating across a surprising number of communities. Because Han Se-ah was charming. Because the NPCs were pretty and handsome. Because people were curious about the forest that started on the 11th floor—

And because people were curious about the power of a 6★. All of it was being broadcast live, and it was climbing the popular boards across the internet.

I respected the orders Han Se-ah gave as party leader and followed them as best I could. Swinging my mace left and right like a lawnmower chewing through grass, I carved a path straight through the thick trees of the forest.

With the kind of monstrous strength that shattered tree trunks at the waist and ripped roots clean out of the ground, I didn't just open a trail wide enough for two people—I opened one a car could drive through. Not that it mattered. Just as monsters kept spawning, the wrecked forest would eventually regenerate.

If it didn't, adventurers would have clear-cut the entire forest stage between every corridor long ago. If dozens of Upper-grade adventurers like me took axes to the trees and smashed them flat, what could a handful of Orc Hunters possibly do about it?

"That's it! Flatten everything, Roland!"

"I-Is this really all right? Won't we be getting in the way of other adventurers…?"

Han Se-ah's call hadn't been a bad strategic decision. The easiest way to deal with an Orc Hunter's traps in the first place was for the tank to simply shove through them with armor and shield. Crude booby traps cobbled together from scrap materials in the Tower's harsh environment couldn't punch through steel plate.

But just quietly body-checking everything wouldn't have been any fun to watch.

People love Michael Bay blockbusters—things that go boom. As long as it isn't the protagonist getting blown up, who doesn't enjoy watching something explode in a satisfying blast while the enemy scatters in a blind panic?

An Orc Hunter dodging a rolling boulder, only to get caught under a collapsing tree, fought desperately—until a chunk of gravel I'd launched with my mace clipped it and sent it tumbling across the ground. When a dozen trees were crashing down like a logging site and you were rolling around on the forest floor, there was only one possible ending.

"So the drops end up under the tree like this?"

"…I've never seen an Orc Hunter get crushed to death, so I wouldn't know."

With its lower half buried in a mound of dirt and a tree thicker than a support beam dropping onto its head, the Orc Hunter vanished with a wretched gwaek. If this hadn't been inside the Tower, the remains would have been a thoroughly unpleasant sight.

The Full Moon Wolf had been buried under a dirt pile the same way—this one just got pinned under a tree instead. Thinking that, I heaved up a log thicker than a person.

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Even an orc's stubborn vitality couldn't tank the impact of a full-grown tree. Nestled in the dirt mound, the Orc Hunter's drops were visible: a yellowed orc fang, a bone necklace that served as a hunter's token, and a bracelet of beast teeth.

"These are an Orc Hunter's drops? They're kind of… filthy."

"Compared to a Horned Wolf, yes."

Unlike the Horned Wolf's hide, which had looked like top-grade fur, or its eyes, which had looked like gemstones, an Orc Hunter's drops were something else entirely. Whether that was the difference between beast-type and humanoid monsters, or between body parts and accessories, I couldn't say.

That was exactly the kind of question that kept the mages buried in experiments and papers, pulling all-nighters even now.

In fact, the reason the mages of the Magic Tower bought up not just Mana Stones but entire batches of drops like these was for research. Why did the corpse, the bow, and the miscellaneous tools all dissolve into Mana Stones, while the bracelet and necklace remained? They ran experiments and wrote papers to answer questions like that.

"It felt great, but is it a bit much to wreck the forest like this every time we run into an Orc Hunter?"

"It does seem a little… excessive."

Kayden and the viewers reacted at the same time to Han Se-ah's words as she stowed the drops in her inventory. Nearly several dozen trees had been ripped up by the roots and snapped at the waist just to catch a single fleeing Orc Hunter.

The sheer brute-force approach was fun to watch, but we couldn't pull this stunt every time an Orc Hunter showed up.

On top of that, mages had come down to the 20th floor as well. If we weren't careful, other adventurers could get caught in my rampage. Keep going like this and it would turn into a manslaughter case by willful negligence. I had absolutely no desire to pick a fight with mages mid-experiment—other adventurers were one thing, but not them.

"For now, let's keep scouting with Grace and Roland in front. Sitting around thinking about it isn't going to give us an answer."

Grace and I took the lead, with Irene, Han Se-ah, and Kayden in the rear. I covered Grace with my shield and armor, while Kayden—quick on her feet—covered the back line. In short, any trap we failed to find, we'd just smash through with our bodies.

Better to accept a little risk and power through than let our movement speed crawl to a halt over traps that were hard to find—traps ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that might not even be there. The viewers cackled about us using another brainless method, but I was perfectly satisfied.

If the body's weak, the head suffers for it. If you can just ignore something and punch straight through, there's no need to sit there groaning while you invent some other approach.

"We probably won't find the passage to the 21st floor right away, so around evening we should start looking for a place to camp too."

"Got it. I'll keep an eye out for clearings while we scout."

Having cooled off from the excitement, Han Se-ah resumed the search. Following her lead, Grace and I left the forcibly cleared forest path behind and moved on. Grace stuck close to my side and began murmuring.

"…I really didn't think I wouldn't be able to find the traps. I can sense a monster's presence this finely—call it a living presence, I guess—so why can't I spot something as crude as a bent branch?"

"You've spent your time as a hunter tracking prey, so that makes sense. It's the same reason thieves who are good at lockpicking and trap disarming can't find Horned Wolves or Moss Wolves."

Han Se-ah's gamer pride had taken a hit after freezing up at a swinging branch. Grace seemed to be nursing a similar bruise to her pride as a scout for failing to spot a crude booby trap.

The reason they were so angry was that the Orc Hunter's booby traps were extremely crude. All it amounted to was a springy branch pulled back and tied off with a thin vine rope.

And yet Grace had immediately found the Orc Hunter that had dug a pit, covered it in fallen leaves, and hidden under a Moss Wolf's hide. She could find a camouflaged hideout with her eyes closed—something you'd never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spot by sight unless you stepped on it—but somehow missed a bent branch. It was a little funny.

Then again, thinking about myself—able to smash boulders with a mana-reinforced fist, yet unable to form a Magic Missile with that same powerful mana and incapable of even cracking an egg—it was only natural. If an archer could also use thief skills, what would be the point of separating the classes?

"That's why adventurers working the 20th floor prefer thieves over archers. Higher up, though, there aren't any enemies setting traps, so archers take the advantage again pretty quickly."

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"What's it like on the upper floors?"

"After the forest comes a cave. There aren't any traps someone set—the terrain itself is just a tangled mess. From there, it doesn't matter whether you're a thief or an archer. What matters is having someone who can remember the path."

Archers had the edge scouting Horned Wolves on the 10th floor. Thieves had the edge hunting Orc Hunters on the 20th. From the 30th floor on, it was less about class and more about skill level. Partly to soothe Grace, and partly to drip a little information to the viewers, I started talking about the 21st floor.

After the grasslands, the forest.

After the forest, the cave.

I could feel the quiet conversation going on behind us naturally trail off as curiosity about the 21st floor—where we'd be heading soon—took hold. They seemed more interested in hearing about the cave than talking among themselves.

I was pretty sure I'd given them a rough overview of the caves last time.

"The cave, huh… hmm?"

"What is it?"

"…This is weird."

Mid-conversation, Grace's expression shifted in an instant. Just as she had when tracking Horned Rabbits and Horned Foxes, she crouched by a tree trunk and began scraping at something with the dagger at her hip.

Seeing her like that, the three in the rear tensed and hurried over, scanning the surroundings.

"Is it an Orc Hunter trap?"

"No—not a trap. There's a trail I've never seen before."

As she scraped away the dirt covering a large tree's roots with her dagger, a strange mark came into view. It looked as though someone had torn off part of the bark and roots with a crude blade.

An Orc Hunter's dagger shouldn't have been able to cut roots this thick.

"There's something in this forest that isn't an Orc Hunter. It might even be another adventurer gathering materials for a request."

Not an Orc Hunter—possibly the work of another adventurer. That was Grace's read. Han Se-ah, though, seemed to have reached a slightly different conclusion.

Because the 20th-floor quest had just begun.