The Starving Beast 2
The fact that orc settlements had started appearing on the twentieth floor was a bigger problem than I'd expected.
Dozens of orcs would certainly be a threat to Intermediate-grade adventurers traveling in parties. But any scout worth their Intermediate-grade rank could sense the racket of an orc settlement and simply go around it. The real problem was the people who couldn't quietly slip past.
In other words, the supply wagons heading for the upper floors were in trouble.
A large-scale expedition carving out forest paths as the wagons advanced, always seeking the widest, flattest ground available. A dozen wagons punching through the woods were never going to move quietly. And there was no chance the orcs would fail to notice that kind of noise.
"This is getting bigger than I thought… Honestly, I figured it was just a numbers problem and nothing special."
"The numbers are the problem. Supply transport has to be efficient."
Hauling food and water up for distribution was all about money. You couldn't spend ten gold on security to deliver one gold's worth of supplies. That was the same reason Kayden had worked as a porter all the way to the twentieth floor.
There was no reason to hire mid-to-upper-grade mercenaries just to protect provisions from horned foxes and goblins. No reason to bring Upper-grade adventurers from the thirtieth floor and above just to stop a charging helmet stag, either.
Novice adventurers for the first ten floors, Intermediate-grade for the twentieth, Upper-grade once you pushed past the thirtieth. Hiring adventurers under the Guild's name was a kind of welfare benefit and an efficiency-driven staffing arrangement all at once.
But throwing an orc settlement into that equation was a massive problem.
"Hmm. If we don't step it up, things could get dangerous."
"Dangerous? You mean the orcs?"
"No. Our wallets."
Everyone's eyes went round at my unexpected answer, faces full of confusion. They'd gotten used to adventuring inside the Tower, but they still reacted like chicks who'd never quite settled into an adventurer's life. Kayden, with her mercenary experience, was the first to catch on.
"Come to think of it, Lady Rebecca was furious and still on the twentieth floor."
"Exactly. Knowing that temper of hers, she won't just politely head upstairs. She'd tear the entire twentieth floor apart if that's what it took to find her booze."
Unlike Kayden, who roughly understood what I was getting at, Han Se-ah still wore a blank look, completely lost. For her benefit, I boiled it down nice and simple.
"Unlike the Full Moon Wolf, where we actually made a profit, this time Rebecca could snatch the entire reward for herself."
Basically like a last-hit steal.
Her eyes finally went wide as dinner plates once she got it. Apparently the idea that an NPC could snatch a boss's last hit and the reward in an RPG had never even crossed her mind. But this was a virtual reality game that insisted on realism.
If an enraged Rebecca took the orc boss's head, the benefits from the Mage Tower and the Guild would go to Rebecca's mercenary company — not to Han Se-ah the player.
This wasn't some keyboard-and-mouse MMORPG where entering a boss fight opened a portal, spawned a new field, and locked the path behind you. Even the Full Moon Wolf, if I hadn't one-shot it, would have been approachable by other adventurers, wouldn't it?
"Wait, hold on — for real? A 5-star character could snatch the main quest reward right out from under us? Our competition is a 5-star?"
A flustered Han Se-ah appealed to her viewers for sympathy, but there was no way those mischievous chatters would play along. Instead, they got fully invested in teasing her and started fantasizing among themselves about just how strong Rebecca really was.
As a 5-star, Rebecca was strong. In game terms, I was a pure tank and Rebecca was a melee DPS — the kind of fighter you'd call a blade champ. Last time I'd seen her fight, she'd been swinging her blade and, when the need arose, coating her jaws in aura and biting clean through a monster's throat.
Not a monster mauling a person — a person biting a monster's neck and killing it. That beast of a woman image just wouldn't leave my head. Anyway, when you wrapped your whole body in aura because every weapon you owned still wasn't enough, of course you were going to kill monsters faster than I did.
"Honestly, our party's pockets are fat right now thanks to the Full Moon Wolf bounty. And the other adventurers and mercenaries know it. If you want a taste of that money, you have to move fast."
"There are quite a few adventurers eyeing the opportunity, yes."
"Oh, right. There were a fair number who wanted to join our party, too."
"Really, Grace?"
"Of course. A party steadily led by an Upper-grade adventurer, plus the mage who resolved the Full Moon Wolf incident? And people see every morning that we don't pay gate fees."
Apparently today's Han Se-ah was on surprise duty. Grace's explanation made her forget her anxiety entirely as she listened with open curiosity. Objectively speaking, our party was an excellent premium listing, so it was only natural. Free gate access alone made us the best party around.
Guaranteed safety, low labor intensity, rising income, and solid connections to boot?
For Intermediate-grade adventurers who'd finally climbed past living hand-to-mouth and reached the stage of planning for their future, Han Se-ah's party was something beyond even the phrase "dream job."
"Anyway… given all that, I'm planning to head out to the first floor today and prepare for a long-term stay in the Tower. We'll petition the Guild to make this twentieth floor our base of operations, then stuff Hanna's inventory full of ingredients and start a long-term expedition."
"A long-term expedition… Not a bad idea. If we're aiming for the upper floors, it's something we'd have to face eventually."
The others nodded at Kayden's words. They'd already felt the Full Moon Wolf windfall in their bones, after all — enchanted gear and free gate passes included. There was no reason to balk at the idea of taking on orcs.
Han Se-ah was a gamer, Irene a Candidate Saint, Kayden a princess hiding her identity. Looking at the party, Grace — the girl from a slash-and-burn farming village — had the least formal justification of anyone, but last time's character quest had already settled that.
"Think there'll be some enormous orc or something?"
"Perhaps an orc chieftain will appear — armored and skilled in combat, the way a knight differs from a common soldier."
"Is it possible some other monster rules over the orcs? Temple records mention wandering orcs taking goblins as subordinates…"
"That happens when wanderers outside the Tower join forces out of sheer hunger. Inside the Tower, I believe the likelihood is low."
"Ah, I see."
Even knowing the quest was called "Orc Kingdom," Han Se-ah apparently didn't know the boss monster's identity, so she chatted away with the others. After a solid night's rest in a cabin stocked with magical tools instead of a tent, and a full belly of good food, their condition couldn't have been better.
There were more orcs now, but that also meant more noise — so we skipped the bothersome fights and headed straight for the passage. Whether orc settlements were limited to the twentieth floor alone, the nineteenth floor's forest remained perfectly still.
Through the woods, across the grassland, to the gate's traces — and at last, the open air outside.
"Whew. Same sun, completely different feeling."
"Right?"
With Grace stretching her long arms in a full-body yawn as her backdrop, Han Se-ah started chatting with her viewers again. Nothing happening on the way out of the Tower was good news for us, but the viewers would find it dull without something to watch.
The topic of conversation was, of course, the twentieth floor's boss monster. Just as Grace, Irene, and Kayden had been theorizing among themselves, Han Se-ah and her chat launched into an earnest discussion of the boss's identity.
"Still, it's an Orc Kingdom, so shouldn't a king show up? Orc King… saying it out loud makes the boss sound way too strong."
"Hey now, you lot are quietly praying for me to fail, aren't you? There's no way the boss loses its head in a single day. That wouldn't just be a problem of the player missing the reward — the game would just be boring."
I walked up to Han Se-ah mid-chatter and tapped her on the shoulder. She'd been so locked onto the camera she hadn't even noticed me approaching. The way she jumped while staring into empty air made me grin as I casually kept talking like nothing had happened.
"What? Why so startled?"
"Eek — ahaha! It's nothing, I was just thinking about orcs a bit."
She must have been more than a little surprised, because she spat out one of her trademark awkward lies. The chat window flooded with mockery in an instant, and she bit down hard on her lower lip in embarrassment — which was pretty cute. Moments like this were exactly why I kept wanting to tease her.
The mischievous viewers in chat probably felt the same way, right? Rationalizing it like that, I told her why I'd called her over.
"Come to the market with me. We should pack your inventory full of dry rations. How much more can you carry if you use magic?"
"Uh, maybe… about twenty sacks of food?"
"Nice. That'll easily cover a month."
"A whole month?!"
So it was slot-based rather than weight-based. I roughly reassured her as her eyes went huge at the word "month," and we set off toward the market together.