Field Boss
The settlement quests were simpler than I had expected.
The first was only to check your base class information and activate a single unique option. The very first one-star activation is free, so that opening quest was as good as handed to you. It exists because outsiders—users—need to know at least what power they have to protect themselves if they are ever going to adapt to Haven, even if they never set foot in a dungeon. Haven, like a Korea still living under an armistice, is a dangerous world where monsters might pour in at any moment. Think of it as basic military training.
Finish that first settlement quest and you are issued a basic weapon and three pieces of armor. Nothing impressive—standard-issue leather and a weapon to match. Even so, you may choose whichever type you like from among the two-star weapons, which is why it is known as an essential quest you have to clear before entering a dungeon.
The quest that follows is dungeon entry itself: go into a level 1, one-star dungeon and kill a single monster. That is the second settlement quest. In practice, it is the first and last time Haven ever forces a newly arrived user to hunt. Even that can be ignored if you simply have no interest in quests—the way I have already spent nearly a month in Haven without so much as glancing at them, and nothing has gone wrong.
It is not difficult. Step in as a party of four users in the same situation, all holding the quest, and a level 1 one-star dungeon is easy enough to clear. Go in for that one kill, and if it proves too hard you can die, walk back out, and still complete it. That is how you adapt to a Haven that is not the real world—how you survive here, and how a user earns money and settles more easily into a strange land.
The NPCs who live in Haven do not exist for users, and they do not live for them either. This is their home, and even the ground they need simply to go on living has already been taken by monsters. The land is cramped enough as it is. They have no reason to share it with outsider users, and yet they do, which you might as well regard as payment for users with special power helping to slay those monsters.
"Congratulations. You have completed the second settlement quest. As your reward, I will give you stat points."
You would have to call it an enormous payment. Stat points—three of them, no less. For any user with the slightest intention of growing a character, this is a quest you clear. No exceptions.
Finish the second, and the third has nothing to do with combat.
"Look around Seoul and visit the essential facilities. You can open an account, and you can purchase items conveniently as well."
Stop by the bank, stop by the auction house, take in the various amenities scattered through Seoul, and the final quest is given.
"I will give you 100,000 won. Reserve a capsule room and stay the night. A user may return to their own world to sleep, but a character left behind in Haven accumulates fatigue. If that fatigue stacks, your stats can fall and your maximum health and mana can shrink, so please be careful."
Plenty of users have no thought of buying a house in Haven, and plenty more lack the money. Haven does not accommodate them. Most of its consideration is a matter of convenience, but when it comes to actually settling, it places strict limits on users who only hook one foot over the threshold and linger there, watching.
You have to sleep in Haven for a certain amount of time. You do not need to stay logged in to do it. Even the cheapest room will do: lie down in a capsule room at 30,000 won for twenty-four hours and log out, and the fatigue you have built up can be cleared. A single day does not stack enough of it to shave your stats, of course. Roughly once every three days. Sleep is mandatory if you want a character performing at a full hundred percent.
So the last settlement quest is to rent a capsule room and sleep. With that, the settlement quests come to an end. The reward is five stat points. Clear them all and you walk away with eight—an excellent quest.
"And they just let you clear all of that...?"
Four settlement quests meant to walk you through that whole process, and I had blown through every one of them after opening my mouth a single time.
"People are saying, for an outstanding settler like me, wouldn't double stats be fine? A lot of people."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
I had asked on the off chance, and the employee flicked me a glance that plainly asked what kind of idiot this was. Sheepish, I scratched my head and read the chat.
"Could I receive the field boss quest?"
"One moment."
The moment I asked, the employee began tapping busily at something. Another message appeared.
Grade:C
Among the overrun regions, some are ruled by field bosses. Defeat the field boss of such a region, and you can obtain a Badge that lets you grow stronger. Defeat the field boss and return.
Reward:Level 1 (★) Badge
"What is this, now?"
"Once you complete it, come back and claim the reward."
I had heard that the higher your level climbed, the more content appeared to make you stronger. I had never looked any of it up. I had not particularly wanted to know the distant future ahead of time, so holding the quest in my hands, I found it novel.
"Is this pay-to-win too?"
Complete the field boss quest, they say, and you can equip three Badges—the same number as your pieces of armor. Each Badge can be granted options, and those too can be rerolled for grade and effect. Naturally, a high grade and a preferred option are what you want.
"So first I need to take down a field boss?"
I had seen field-boss content before. Was there a Haven user alive who did not know what a field boss was? Alongside dungeon hunting, it was popular enough to be called one of the two great pillars of the game: not a sealed dungeon, but an enormous field boss you meet in a region built on reality itself, dozens of users pooling their strength to take a single boss apart.
"At last... has the time come to show them what I can do?"
It was content worth looking forward to. Solo-clearing a dungeon is an honor, and it draws plenty of eyes, but competitive content—the kind that posts exactly how much damage you dealt, the way a field boss does—would make overwhelming force stand out all the sharper. I got greedy.
"I'll put up seventy percent."
The viewers had several reasons for saying so. Everyone already knew my specs were good, but the larger point was that Badge effects were nothing to dismiss.
"Hmm."
I was not worried, of course. This was a level range where people did not even gear properly—not quite the bracket where you pick up whatever drops, slap it on, and move along, the way you do in most games.
"Roll a four-star, kill the field boss, buy Badges."
The plan set itself.
"So which field boss should I take first?"
With one heart and one mind, they named a single field boss. A few other names surfaced in the gaps, but if everyone said this was what you killed the moment you received the field boss quest, I had no particular reason to hunt anything else.
"All right. Slime King it is. You wouldn't happen to know the spawn time?"
"Don't jinx it. You know a four-star is a million won a reroll, right?"
Watching them rejoice, I felt an unaccountable twist in my gut—the petty urge not to give them what they wanted.
"Not telling. I'll start when I feel like it."
I had gone contrary. It did not work on the viewers.
"..."
Ruthless bastards. Even so, the endorphins were kicking in.
"Been a while since I spent any money."