Do Sharks Live in Rivers Too?

The palace was a crumbling ruin, its walls flaking with rust and neglect. In the courtyard, thousands of people materialized from thin air.

"We thank all of you who have come to protect our world. To the west you'll find daily necessities and restaurants. To the east, we offer support items and weapons..."

A middle-aged man dressed in lavish royal robes shouted from the terrace. Even with amplification magic carrying his voice, the explanation was lost on the impatient. Hot-blooded hunters immediately bolted for the open gates, eager to hunt monsters.

A man with striking golden hair approached the king. It was Captain.

"Bedrooms can be found in the palace or any inn in the city..."

"Your Majesty, these visitors aren't interested in that."

"...Are you their representative?"

"Close enough. More importantly, tell us where the enemy's leadership is located. The more high-value targets we eliminate, the better for you as well, correct?"

"Understood. First, if you'll look at this map of the kingdom..."

As the king and Captain began their discussion, people swarmed in from all directions.

"Every dimension participating in the Expedition is already overflowing with enemies that must be slain anyway. No point wasting precious time. Let's listen together."

"Hey! Anyone below rank 10, clear out! There's no room!"

The area around the king filled with rankers, high rankers, and the absolute elite among even those—the top awakeners whose names were known across the globe.

Every dimension involved in the Expedition was a world on the brink of being devoured by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠monsters. With the entire planet crawling with them outside a handful of safe zones, the high rankers saw no need to rush into battle. They simply absorbed the king's briefing.

Soon after, having grasped the local ecosystem, the high rankers returned to their guilds and left the palace to begin hunting.

"Thank you for your hard work, Your Majesty."

"No matter how they can't touch me, it's still no easy task."

The king pulled out a handkerchief and wiped cold sweat from his brow. He and every other native glowed with a golden light. The palace and every structure in the city shared the same radiance.

In this state, Expedition members from other dimensions couldn't attack them. Skills couldn't even be used inside the safe-zone cities.

"Oh God. Please watch over us."

The traces of an unfathomably powerful transcendent being's intervention were everywhere. The king could only pray that the Expedition members would slay as many monsters as possible before departing.

Far from the royal capital where the high rankers had been summoned, in a remote border city.

The Expedition divided participants by difficulty into upper, middle, and lower layers of the Tower. Even though I was on the Impossible difficulty, I technically belonged to the lower layer, so I'd been dropped into a remote village rather than the dangerous heart of the conflict.

When I looked around, the city's streets were packed with countless people.

I thought I might be starting solo... but I guess not.

I was the only one attempting the Impossible difficulty. Normally that should have placed me alone, but it seemed I'd been sent with the lower-layer Hard difficulty users.

Can't summon Poppy anyway... Not that I planned to.

According to Expedition rules, skills couldn't be used inside cities where natives lived. Some people had worried about being attacked in the villages, but...

Just how monstrous is the Tower that it can enforce rules like this?

There had never been a single case of a safe zone being assaulted during an Expedition. If Earthlings attacked each other with malicious intent, they were immediately expelled from the Expedition. It was an overwhelmingly powerful system that was hard to believe had been created by anyone's will.

Even unintentional ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠attacks or mistakes were automatically filtered and judged by the Tower itself. There had never been a reported case of wrongful expulsion. Anyone who claimed innocence was always proven to have brought it upon themselves.

Regardless, the real battle from here on was against time. The key was how efficiently and frugally one used these seven days.

"White Tiger Guild! Gather at the clock tower!"

"Damn it! Alex! Where the hell are you!"

The crowds filling the city began forming teams in groups of three or five. Even though regions were divided by difficulty and layer, over a million people were attempting the Hard difficulty lower layer alone.

They couldn't all fit in one city, so even within the same difficulty, participants were split across multiple cities.

"That idiot Alex! We were supposed to meet at the fountain! He couldn't have been sent to another city..."

The solution to this problem was the friend request system. People registered as friends through the Tower's system could begin the Expedition in the same city. Many guilds used this method to participate together.

Of course, I was alone both inside the Tower and in reality, so I had no one to team up with.

Being alone is best anyway. Only weak people need to stick together.

For some reason, I suddenly missed Poppy, who was currently unsummoned. Setting loneliness aside, as long as I had my legion, there was no reason to travel with others.

I glanced around lightly before heading toward the nearest section of the city wall.

"Anyone needing city guidance, gather here!"

"James! Over here! How can you miss this flashy blond hair?"

"Like there's only one blond guy here?"

Unlike climbing the Tower, the Expedition didn't divide regions by country. My noticeably Asian appearance didn't draw attention here the way it might elsewhere. I naturally blended into the crowd and walked toward the eastern gate.

In truth, with my current physical abilities, I could have easily carved through this crowd and left the city. But there was no need to advertise that I was an Impossible difficulty user, and the gate wasn't far, so I simply walked at a brisk but ordinary pace.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

A man fell into step beside me. A Caucasian with bright brown hair and blue eyes. A young man with an somehow unpleasant face stuck close to my side.

I'd met various rankers while working with the Heavenly Palace Guild, but I'd never seen anyone who looked like him.

Ah, right. A ranker wouldn't be in a place like this.

Come to think of it, the fact that he'd been dropped in the same area as me suggested he was likely a newly awakened hunter from the Fourth Great Awakening.

Even though the man had closed the distance, I didn't slow down.

"If you're operating solo, how about joining our guild?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"There isn't a stronger guild than ours on the lower floors..."

I ignored the man's words and continued toward the gate. Despite my blatant disregard, he persistently followed and kept talking.

"Ah! I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Jean Degore, the next guild master of Elan Guild, France's top guild. If you haven't chosen a guild yet, our guild..."

The familiar name jogged my memory.

Oh! I think I saw him on the hunter community forums.

The Fourth Great Awakening had devoured countless high-ranking talents. Among them, he was the only one besides me who'd successfully broken into the existing top 10 rankings.

Seventh on the first floor, eighth on the second, was it?

It might seem insignificant compared to my own achievements, but breaking through the seemingly impenetrable top 10 was certainly something to brag about.

I stopped half-listening and paid proper attention to what the man was saying. Even then, my feet continued carrying me toward the gate.

"You look like you're from Europe or America. If your real-world location is dangerous, our guild can come pick you up."

His words triggered a faint sense of unease. Even though I was moving quickly, it was still at the level of an ordinary Hard difficulty user. There was no way he could have identified me as an Impossible user just from my running speed.

Unless...

I activated the senses I'd been suppressing and examined the man following me. A much higher stat than expected registered in my perception.

The rest are below 100, but... his perception stat is over 100 already? This soon?

For one stat to have already crossed 100 after only about a week since the Fourth Great Awakening began was an incredible growth rate. He must have sensed a portion of my abilities through his high perception stat.

"We're a party of twelve, including two precious healers and two mages..."

Of course, that gave me no reason to be interested. Without responding to Degore's words, I continued forward until I reached the gate. When I headed into the forest, Degore finally stopped following.

No matter how strictly the Tower prevented direct fighting between climbers, it couldn't prevent indirect hunting interference. Following someone around in hunting grounds outside the safe-zone cities was strictly taboo.

"So he won't push it that far."

After confirming no one was around, I summoned Poppy.

"Krwang!"

"Shh. Let's get out of here quickly."

If I created a Void Pond near the city, other awakeners might discover it.

"Since we don't need to return to the city, we can go as far as we want."

Other people had to return to the safe cities to eat and sleep, but with my legion, I had no such need.

"It's a shame I won't get to eat proper food... but I can't waste precious time just for a meal."

"Keng!"

The world where the Expedition was taking place was one on the verge of being devoured by countless monsters. That meant there were endless monsters to hunt—and plenty of excellent DNA to harvest.

"If I miss an opportunity like this, I might as well give up the name of Impossible difficulty user."

Poppy and I raced through the forest at speeds incomparable to how we'd moved inside the city.

"Boss! Wait for us!"

After sending Haram on his way, Degore waited at the gate for his guild members.

"What happened? Don't tell me the boss has a thing for that kind of..."

"Shut up, Leo. Are you trying to make me a pedophile?"

Degore smacked the shoulder of the large Black man who had approached.

"Ha, I don't know what this world is coming to. Even a child that young has to be dragged onto the battlefield."

Haram had assumed Degore had noticed his abilities and approached him on purpose. But with a perception stat that had only just crossed 100, it was impossible for Degore to have read Haram's full status.

He had simply seen a child participating in the Expedition alone and rushed over out of concern.

"If he was dropped here, he's probably a Hard user. Is there really anything to worry about?"

"Whether he has ability or not, it's wrong for children like that to be climbing the Tower."

After clearing the first floor, Haram had immediately left the city. Inside the Tower he always traveled with his legion, so there had been no misunderstandings. But to others, Haram's appearance looked even younger than he actually was.

After running through the forest with Poppy for an hour, the terrain I'd been looking for finally came into view.

"This should be far enough."

"Keng!"

A river about thirty meters wide cut through the forest. I approached it and created a Void Pond.

"If the monsters have devoured this world, doesn't that mean nature is taking a breather?"

"Keng!"

"Then it should be fine if I destroy the environment a little, right?"

"Keng?"

Thinking back to the time before gates and awakeners appeared, it was easy to find articles about thousands of times the area of Yeouido disappearing from the Amazon every year.

Those stories had vanished after humanity stopped being the dominant species on Earth. The monsters that came through the gates did hunt and gather, but not at a level that destroyed the natural ecosystem.

So even if I created a legion on a planet already devoured by monsters, it probably wouldn't cause any major problems.

Together with Poppy, I gathered resources at the Void Pond and produced Void Insects and Void Hounds. Occasionally goblins that couldn't gauge our strength would attack us, but...

They simply converted into points and resources. Unlike certain Tower floors that wouldn't grant points if the power gap was too extreme, the Expedition gave points no matter how weak the monster.

It was probably to prevent people from only hunting high-point targets during a planetary cleanup operation.

"Wait, since every floor of mine is an Expedition, doesn't that mean I should be getting point settlements?"

The other difficulties were fake constructs, but every floor of the Impossible difficulty was real. I decided to take it up with the Tower later and focused on gathering resources for now.

After working diligently for nearly three hours, I had produced over a thousand Void Insects and several thousand lightweight ambush-type Void Hounds. The lightweight hounds were more than enough to handle the forest's main monsters—goblins and kobolds.

"Set up even production reservations and... now, shall we try producing a Void Shark?"

I spent five thousand points to create a Void ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Shark and waited a moment. A two-meter shark soon appeared, swimming through the river.

It was armed with armor-like hard scales and razor-sharp teeth. It was smaller than I'd expected, but that was natural considering it was level one.

"All right, Sharky Number One, deploy!"

At my command, the Void Shark swam powerfully through the river. After ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a short time, the message I'd been waiting for appeared.

Naturally, monsters existed underwater in seas and rivers too. The ocean was even more difficult to hunt in than land, so this allowed for much denser monster hunting than on the surface.

Void Hounds on land, Void Sharks in the water. My point duplication was only just beginning.

"But do sharks originally live in rivers too?"

For a moment I wondered if freshwater and saltwater fish were different, but...

"Keng!"

These creatures were born in a Void Pond with strong acidity anyway. Whether the water was salty or fresh probably didn't matter to them.