Wig Retrieval Operation
Difficulty Test 007. The system, zombies, and dwarves were all just like something out of a difficulty-test game. None of it was natural. That was why I had always suspected someone’s deliberate intent lay behind the phenomenon.
‘Finally… is the main body showing up?’
I held no particular grudge against this guy. Still, I saw no reason to grovel, so I opened with a straightforward question.
“Who are you?”
[Puhaha! Is that really the question you want to ask right now? I caught myself a fun one! No… wait. Looking back at your life, maybe that question makes sense after all?]
‘My life? Does he know me…?’
[No? I just checked a second ago.]
A chill ran down my spine.
“You… can you read minds?”
[Ahahaha. Nope. It was just written all over your face. Fun, fun. This is way too exciting!]
He was a strangely laughing guy. Actually, it wasn’t just the laugh—everything about him felt off. Completely different from the ‘system’ I had imagined. Yet it didn’t feel unpleasant. I could sense an inexplicable goodwill in his words and tone. This guy genuinely seemed to like me.
‘Why…?’
“So what’s your goal?”
[Goal? Aha… you crafty bastard! No no. I’ll only tell you one thing. The reason this phenomenon is happening right now. And the reason I’ve appeared before you. Exactly one of the two. You have to choose!]
He spoke like a child. He could probably tell me both, but he was insisting on one simply because he felt like it.
‘The reason for the phenomenon and the reason for his appearance…’
I lightly bit my lip. It looked like he was offering a choice, but in reality he was forcing the latter option. From his first line, he had sounded like someone who had just discovered something amusing. In other words, he had most likely come to make me an offer. Asking about anything else would probably make him take the offer back.
‘But… is this really something worth agonizing over?’
Of course, being suddenly kidnapped and forced into a life-or-death struggle against dwarves was bizarre. For some people it might have been unbearable. At least for me, though, I was under far less stress than I had been working at Barosoft. Even back on Earth I had lived a precarious life, never knowing when or how I might be devoured. No—let’s be honest. I had been on the verge of being eaten when these people saved me.
I made my decision. I would just be honest.
“I’m curious about both. But it seems like you want the latter, so I’ll hear that. Why did you come looking for me?”
[Hmm… If I say that choosing the latter means you’ll never get the chance to learn the former, what then? Still okay?]
“No need to hear it.”
[Ahaha. Fun! Then go hear it from some other guy later if you want. The reason I’ve appeared before you is this: Hey, want to raise the difficulty a bit? Honestly, going on like this is way too boring, right?]
‘Raise the difficulty? Wait… was that it?’
Several users had undergone rapid growth after clearing Stage 2. The phrasing “other guys” implied there were multiple entities making these offers. In other words, other users had met these “other guys,” accepted some proposal, and achieved massive growth.
‘I knew it! This was the branching point!’
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
[Got it! Then I’ll tweak things my style. And remember this—you were the first one I, ■■■■■■■, discovered.]
‘What? I couldn’t hear the last part.’
[Ah. So you guys still can’t view that yet?]
A brief silence.
[Then… the Most Depressing Savior…? Yeah, that works. That’s roundabout enough! See you later, Zombie Summoner. If you survive, that is. Heh heh. Bye!]
With those words, the messages stopped. He seemed to have left.
‘By the way, what exactly does adjusting the difficulty mean? Are the dwarves getting a little stronger or increasing in number?’
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
‘Error…?’
Thud— A sudden tremor shook the ground.
‘Ah, the map’s changing again… Huh? Wait a second.’
Thud— Thud— This wasn’t the sound of the map changing. Far away, near the bandit camp’s main gate, something enormous was moving. Every time it took a step, the ground shook. An eerie sense of dread washed over me. I immediately sprinted toward the watchtower. I had to see what was making that sound.
And what finally came into view was nothing like the dwarves I had expected.
“What… is that?”
A humanoid figure sat with its back to the watchtower. Shaggy brown hair covered the back of its head and cascaded down to its shoulders. Even while seated, it was over three meters tall. Its skin had a grayish hue.
‘A giant…?’
The monster raised its long arm and crushed one of the dwarves into a puddle. In an instant, the dwarf became nothing more than a wet stain on the ground.
Thud— The dwarves fired arrows and swung their axes with everything they had, but the giant’s hide wouldn’t break. The small ballista—the biggest threat during the gate assault—was fired. The giant casually snatched the incoming bolt out of the air.
‘Difficulty… is this what it meant…?’
Its physical specs were absurd. I felt like I had become a dwarf myself.
‘No, the gap is even bigger than that…’
I hurriedly summoned my zombie.
“Zombie.”
“Kkik…”
The zombie had also spotted the giant and was so terrified its voice came out in a whimper. If the giant looked that big to me, then to them it must have looked like a skyscraper.
“For now… go out and bite all the dogs. Head to the huts.”
The zombie leaped down from the watchtower. It knew that once the dwarves were all dead, it would be our turn next.
‘There has to be a way somewhere.’
I began reviewing the [Stage 2 Observation Log] in my head and formulating a plan. If all of this was like a game, then there had to be a strategy. There absolutely had to be.
After watching the giant massacre the dwarves, I became certain that a frontal assault was impossible. When the seated giant stood up, it easily exceeded five meters in height. Having spent so long dominating the dwarves with sheer size, the difference hit me even harder.
It wasn’t just a matter of scale. The giant swung its arms a few times and smashed the camp’s main gate like a toy. Its strength exceeded what its appearance suggested. But the real problem was its hide. There had been quite a few dwarves, so some attacks had landed. Yet even when they struck with full force using their axes, the giant’s skin only suffered minor scratches.
‘Is it made of stone…?’
It even regenerated. The spots that had been scratched were already closing up when I looked again.
‘Everyone cleared this? That’s impossible.’
There was no way. That thing was a monster that could tear apart ten Russian bears like paper. I had simply run into a lunatic. My “lunatic radar,” honed from years of dealing with crazy people, was going off loud and clear.
‘Ha… why didn’t it activate earlier…’
But regret was useless now. The water had already been spilled, and the strange guy was gone.
‘No, is he still watching? Damn it!’
After wracking my brain again and again, I finally arrived at a single ray of hope. In the third post by the Stage 2 expert, titled [Let’s Check the Edge of the Map], the main content had been about climbing trees. He had tried to go outside the map. Since it was posted after getting thoroughly beaten by the dwarves in parts one and two, I had assumed it was just an escape post, but it contained something that might solve the current situation.
‘If you go outside the map, you feel terrible pain.’
This had been verified not only by the expert himself, but also with his summons and by throwing dwarves outside. Any entity that left the map would die if it didn’t return within a certain time, and even if it came back, it would be exhausted. The phenomenon wasn’t affected by the entity’s strength. In game terms, it was like fixed damage proportional to maximum health.
This was the only solution I could think of right now. The problem was how to get the giant outside the map.
“Damn it, I’m really going crazy.”
Somewhere, I thought I could hear the laughter of “the Most Depressing Savior.” I had thought he was a savior, but he was just another lunatic. I couldn’t understand why the word “savior” was even in his name.
‘He really is the most depressing one. Ha…’
Thud— Crash— The last remaining dwarf was desperately running along the palisade to escape the giant. The giant didn’t bother chasing him. Instead, it picked up nearby rocks one by one and threw them playfully.
Boom! Its accuracy was terrible. Or rather, it was deliberately missing. With only one toy left, the giant was simply enjoying the situation and playing around. If it could enjoy playing, then its intelligence was at least on the level of a dolphin or higher.
“At this rate, luring it won’t work either…”
With its physical abilities, intelligence, and the way it threw stones, its focus and eyesight were probably excellent too. It had thrown balance to the dogs.
Would tying it up with ropes and having forty dogs pull at once even work in a contest of strength? It was a stupid idea. The ropes would just be tree trunks anyway—the rope would snap before any real tug-of-war happened. And the giant wouldn’t even bother engaging in a strength contest in the first place.
What the hell was I supposed to do? Food? Poison? Traps? I had mobilized every bit of knowledge I possessed, but the overwhelming difference in raw power was simply too much to handle.
‘Wait… that… could it be?’
While desperately observing the giant, I finally noticed something unusual. A very uncommon trait. But it was one I knew all too well. In addition to my lunatic-detecting radar, I possessed another high-performance detection ability.
It was my baldness radar.
Department Manager Park Gibeom, that trash of a boss, hadn’t had much hair. But he cared so much about how he looked to others that he always wore a specially made wig. Inside the company, though, he didn’t wear it. Like some kind of outerwear, he would take it off indoors and put it on outdoors, living that way for years.
‘He must have thought there was no need to look good for us.’
Anyway, because of that, I had spent a long time watching how a bald man handled a wig. Whether I wanted to or not, I saw it every single day. How to maintain a wig. How to treat a wig. How to tell the difference between someone wearing a wig and someone who wasn’t. And this giant was displaying several characteristics that only a bald person would show.
The way it raised its arms while being conscious of its head. The habit of pressing down on the crown whenever it made a big movement. And the way it carefully untangled its hair with both hands instead of using its fingers like a comb, no matter how messy it got.
‘You bastard… you’re bald, aren’t you?’
Why did it matter that the giant was bald? Of course, it didn’t matter much to me. But to that thing, it would be extremely important. For example, what if I snatched off its wig and tossed it outside the map?
Would the giant charge at me to kill me? Or would it run outside the map to retrieve its wig?
I would bet my entire fortune that it would ignore me and sprint outside the map. Suddenly, the giant looked exactly like Department Manager Park Gibeom. That fat belly. The way it playfully crushed the weak. Even the ugly face was a perfect match.
Honestly, I knew this operation I was about to carry out wasn’t a normal strategy. But regardless of what the proper strategy might be, now that this idea had come to me, I was determined to steal that bald giant’s wig.
The decision was made. Operation name: Wig Retrieval Operation. I would unleash all the dogs. We were going to steal the bald man’s wig.