Local University Researcher

"This bastard?"

Wasn't this the same guy who'd gotten completely ignored by FakeMage before?

But that wasn't the end of it.

Most of the replies were like that.

Why are they like this?

Was I missing something? I'd even given them the answer — poison. Did they really need to curse me out over that? I wanted to ask what I'd done wrong.

"But that'd just make me look like a total loser, wouldn't it?"

I stuffed the urge to reply deep down. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't think of a way to stir up some real aggro.

Should I just ask for help instead?

FakeMage? Absolutely not. The next time I ran into that guy, I was planning to feed him mad-cow-disease cow dung.

Then what about GoldenCarriage? The prevailing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opinion was that if anyone was going to take down the first-floor boss, it'd be either FakeMage's team or GoldenCarriage's team.

Maybe I should just try talking to GoldenCarriage?

But I dropped the idea almost immediately. There was no way they'd believe me.

First things first — I needed to build some recognition.

"I'm going to need information."

Time to analyze. I'd vaguely assumed people only cared about boss monsters, but maybe that wasn't the whole picture.

Pass. Horny guys existed everywhere. There was plenty of other miscellaneous info, too, but I skimmed past most of it.

"Huh? What's this?"

The interest in wyverns was way beyond what I'd expected.

It was this big?

I checked the auction price on wyvern meat — over a hundred points. I'd figured people needed it, but still.

"Should I go with this?"

In a situation where ways to earn points were limited, it was genuinely surprising that people were willing to drop more than a hundred points on something.

The moment my thoughts turned to wyverns, the words just flowed. No hesitation at all.

That ought to be enough aggro to pull with a wyvern. About thirty minutes after posting, the replies started rolling in.

"Where did I come from? TracesOfWorry, you're going in the mental vault too."

Anger surged up, tangled with a simultaneous feeling of why are you all so cold to me? I was giving them good information and they still hated it. What was I supposed to do?

"Hmm… so is this where the image-making fails?"

I'd even changed the way I talked just to fit in with the community. But a troll reputation, once it settled in, didn't seem to shake off so easily.

"Damn it."

Either way, I still had a pretty comfortable stock of wyvern meat. If it didn't sell, I could always put the fangs, claws, and bones up for auction too. The heart I'd save for later — I needed to stew that one up properly for myself. It would take a while, but I'd get by selling the meat.

"Looks like I'll be stuck here a while. Maybe I should try some wood carving."

That was when a new comment appeared.

LocalUniversityResearcher?

One of the few Awakeners the community actually had a good impression of. My heart started hammering like crazy at the positive attention.

"Ah, shit. Stop that! Calm down!"

Had I been lonely? Maybe I'd been starving for attention.

"Nice. No mistakes. That reply was solid!"

Casual internet-speak, matching the community vibe, with a dash of manners thrown in. I waited for the next reply to come running in.

What request?

Hearing the word "friend" for the first time in a while made it sound almost foreign. They probably meant the friend feature from the early quests — I hadn't realized you could actually use it for this.

No friends.

You son of a— I almost cursed out loud. What did the system know? It wasn't that I had no friends. I just hadn't made any.

A945, a friend request at this exact timing — it had to be LocalUniversityResearcher.

Accept.

It was a strangely good-feeling notification. Not that I'd actually needed a real friend or anything. Seriously.

Ah, for fuck's sake. What was with the 444? What a jinx of a number. I felt absurd about it, but I answered as naturally as I could.

Wyvern info really was that valuable, huh? Since nobody had made it down to B1 yet, I figured there was no particular need to keep it secret.

The part where I'd initially mistaken it for a pterosaur — that was a secret only I needed to know.

Well. It had been a little rough. LocalUniversityResearcher's praise still made me feel a bit smug. I gathered my momentum and put in a plug for poison.

For a poison that could drop a wyvern, you'd need something even more extreme — but there was no need to get into the details. I wasn't really hiding anything, either.

Because I needed the points? I didn't really want to spell out the specific reason. At the same time, I didn't want to disappoint LocalUniversityResearcher either.

That wasn't a lie. I'd used hop goblin meat as bait when I hunted the wyvern, too. This time, it was the reverse — using wyvern meat as the lure.

There weren't any poison classes?

I asked casually, fishing for info on the first-floor situation.

I'd seen it in the comments too. But this person seemed like a genuinely good source of information.

Yeah, makes sense. You can't cast poison magic without poison resistance.

I got the picture. And one more question rose up.

But how do people even learn it?

I wanted to ask — but human psychology doesn't work that way. Bluffing. Right now, I wanted to bluff. I wanted to act like I already knew a little more than I did.

I'm still such a kid, huh.

Not knowing was just not knowing. What good would pretending do? At this rate I'd starve to death down here. So I just asked.

Poisoning came with serious pain. For nearly a whole week I'd thought I was going insane.

Far if you looked at it one way, close if you looked at it another. I couldn't exactly say I was trapped underground.

I hadn't lied.

Right — the wyvern habitat was a secret. I'd just let them think that.

Take care? Healthy love?

I ended the conversation with LocalUniversityResearcher. This person felt like the type who'd read novels alone in their room, the type who loved games. I got the feeling I'd found a good information source. My Intuition said so.

"People can be so harmless."

I hoped LocalUniversityResearcher would do a good job promoting me. The wyvern meat I'd put up for auction would sell soon enough. So all I needed to do was my own work.

First, I need to get to the first floor.

B1 had already been this hard. I couldn't even imagine how tough the first-floor boss would be. The magic I'd learned from my master, for the sake of climbing fast —

But this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is where I keep getting stuck…

Prurprur's high-grade grimoire. The early sections. The intermediate material had come easily once I became a Poison Human — the overall knowledge just clicked. From the advanced material onward, though, it felt like I was working through a doctoral program.

"If I'd just mastered this one thing, hunting the wyvern would've been so much easier."

Blood Coagulation. A simple name for a vicious technique that turned the target's blood into poison. It was amazing enough that a spell like that even existed — but Prurprur's magic was all interconnected, like a single living organism.

"You could've taught me at least one thing before you left. What was the big rush that you had to go without a word?"

Talking to a master who wasn't there wouldn't make him hear me. Being alone on a remote island was more painful than expected. You had to talk to yourself just to keep from getting depressed.

Let's finish this before I head to the first floor.

A magic built on handling putrefied mana as the foundation — and beyond that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the work of injecting mana into the opponent. So for the sake of clearing the first-floor boss, I needed to master it fast.

"First, mana circulation."

My second hobby. Mana circulation, then Mana Decay. With those two, I completely lost track of time……

Ding.

A message notification jolted me awake.

Ugh… my legs are numb.

I remembered starting Mana Decay. When had I fallen asleep? Still half-dazed, I checked the message.

What was the big deal? I spread out the sunbed, lay down, and opened the community. Scrolling down a few of the latest posts, I found a familiar nickname.

"Haha! What is he, a revolutionary?"

He seemed to have a serious grudge against goblins. But what would people actually say about this?

Completely different from when I'd said it myself.

"Not bad at all."

There were people who liked LocalUniversityResearcher's writing — not flashy, but with a certain charm. I was one of them, of course. And as I scrolled through the positive comments, I spotted a familiar nickname.

"Interesting."

And my answer to that was……