The God of Control's One-Coin Clear: Orb Hunt (3)
The sound of rapid footsteps cut through the forest as Taeyang sprinted across it.
Leaves and small branches scraped roughly against his body.
It stings.
The pain control device wasn't working. That was why.
Of course, he couldn't stop running.
Shiiiiiiick!
The giant snake, Aksharon, was chasing him.
This was the price for radiating magical power inside the territory of a top predator.
As both a snake and a demonic beast, Aksharon never forgave any creature that dared challenge it.
Swaaack!
The tingling sensation on his lower back made Taeyang leap upward instantly.
Kwaaaaang!
Aksharon's head slammed into the spot where Taeyang had been standing like a living bomb.
Scattering dirt and leaves battered his back.
The minimum achievement threshold required to even keep up with Aksharon's movements was fifteen. To land a proper hit, it took twenty.
The fact that Taeyang was successfully escaping right now was nothing short of a miracle.
Without the reflexes and improvisation forged through King of Fist, he would have died long ago.
"Still far?"
Taeyang was retracing the exact path he had taken.
Obviously to dump this giant piece of shit—no, snake—onto the other players.
By this point, some players had already found orbs.
There were bound to be some.
Orbs weren't that rare; there simply weren't many of them.
While running through the forest, several players must have picked up one or two that had been rolling around.
They would have also discovered that orbs strengthened your stats.
At a moment like this, what would happen if you dragged in an obviously powerful creature like Aksharon?
Aksharon equals power equals orbs.
Then we have to kill it, right?
Modern people might choose to avoid it first, but the fantasy-world NPCs who were used to hunting monsters and demonic beasts would pull Aksharon's aggro perfectly.
In the Eden dimension, monsters were both natural disasters and treasure troves.
It was obvious that the fantasy NPCs confident in their own strength would swarm it like mad.
This wasn't Taeyang's own prediction.
It was data verified through dozens or hundreds of playthroughs by other users.
Soon the players appeared.
Taeyang ignored them and kept running.
"What's that? Did he find something? Why is he sprinting like that?"
"Looks urgent. Is something chasing him?"
"He's half a beggar. Looks like he got buried in dirt."
Shiiiiiiick!
Then they discovered Aksharon chasing after Taeyang.
"What the hell!"
"It's a monster!"
Some of the NPCs immediately fled the area.
Others hid and watched with gleaming eyes.
Those whose eyes gleamed were, naturally, the fantasy NPCs familiar with demonic beasts.
They scanned each other.
Should we try to catch it?
Greed flickered in their eyes.
Their thoughts were shared among the group in an instant.
"Catch it!"
"It's ours!"
"Doesn't that look too strong?"
"It's just a stupid giant snake!"
Just as Taeyang's data had predicted, they charged straight at Aksharon.
Shiiiiiiick!
"Kill it!"
"Don't get bitten! It might be venomous!"
"I know! How many demonic beasts do you think I've hunted?"
Players chasing it while swinging their blades.
Their swords weren't lethal, but they were more than enough to irritate Aksharon.
In the end, Aksharon stopped chasing Taeyang and turned its head toward the players.
"Heh. Just as planned."
Taeyang smiled wickedly at the sight.
From the very beginning, Taeyang had planned to eliminate the players following him while luring Aksharon out of its den.
Now that the plan had succeeded, he moved as if he had never been running desperately at all. He killed his presence and retraced his steps back to the snake den.
Aksharon had a habit of biting challengers to death and proudly displaying their corpses all over its den.
When you searched those corpses, orbs would appear.
Every demonic beast that had challenged Aksharon, the ruler of the forest, had been a fairly strong creature in its own right.
In other words, Aksharon's empty snake den was essentially a treasure chest full of orbs.
"If my luck helps out just a little more on top of that..."
Taeyang pried open the rigidly stiff jaws of a sword-toothed tiger.
"Nice. One more added."
The Orb's Enhancement Effect Has Been Applied.
The orbs Taeyang had found were essentially the rewards you could only get by hunting Aksharon.
Aksharon was the monster that might as well be the final content of the orb-finding stage.
If the rewards weren't this generous, it would have been disappointing.
Three orbs for clear.
Achievements at three, five, and seven respectively.
The total number of orbs needed to clear every orb-related achievement was eighteen.
In other words, if Taeyang gathered just five more orbs, he could obtain every orb-related achievement and clear the stage at the same time.
Taeyang cracked his neck, popping the joints.
The number of achievements currently applied to his body was twenty-two.
His stats had become monstrous.
He had grown so strong in such a short time that adapting was difficult.
His senses were vastly expanded, and even a light step left deep craters in the ground.
"Then shall we go deeper."
Taeyang stood at the deepest part of Aksharon's snake den.
The remaining length of the tunnel was at most a hundred meters.
If there was no artifact-grade item in here, then there simply wasn't one.
The item they were looking for now would be the most reassuring thing one could possibly obtain in the early stages.
Taeyang strode forward.
To the deepest point of the deepest area inside Aksharon's snake den.
And then.
"Jackpot!"
Taeyang shouted.
There lay Aksharon's shed skin.
Aksharon's molt.
It looked like nothing more than a huge piece of skin, but if you tore it properly and wrapped it around yourself, it would maintain more than half of Aksharon's innate magic resistance. Among magic defense equipment obtainable in the early game, it was top-tier.
The skin maintained more than half of Aksharon's natural magic resistance.
On top of that, if it was properly processed at the forge in a high-floor shelter, it could function as magic armor with respectable performance even on higher floors.
An exemplary item that reliably covered the most difficult aspect—magic defense.
Crack.
Taeyang tore the skin.
Roughly, just enough to wrap around his body.
The skin was tough against magic but weak against physical force, so tearing it posed no problem.
After tearing off the skin, Taeyang quickly left the snake den.
The players had pulled the aggro for him, but it wouldn't last long.
After all, it's an insane-spec monster that requires at least fifteen achievements to even have a basic fight against it.
Since he had achieved all his goals, the smart move was to leave the area quickly.
Once outside the snake den, Taeyang headed east at high speed.
"South, center, and west are the giant snake Aksharon's territory. North belongs to the monster bird Stahn. And east is the domain of the green sand scorpions, right?"
"Heh. It's not that I didn't study. I'm a smart guy."
"It is true, you know?"
"Getting a four without studying is doing well, isn't it?"
While the chat window scrolled upward, Taeyang stopped walking.
"This is the place. The green sand scorpion territory."
The green sand scorpions.
Not a single creature, but a group that claimed the eastern forest through collective strength.
They were also the second-strongest demonic beasts in the entire demonic beast forest.
Each one was only palm-sized, but what you had to watch out for was obviously their venom stinger.
The green sand scorpion's stinger contained a powerful neurotoxin that paralyzed every part of the body—including the internal organs—immediately upon injection.
This neurotoxin was potent enough to work on Aksharon as well.
Use the green sand scorpion's poison and Stahn's feathers to hunt the giant snake Aksharon.
The monster bird Stahn's feathers weren't particularly powerful weapons, but their penetration was exceptional.
Coated with the green sand scorpion's poison, they would become excellent daggers capable of piercing Aksharon's scales.
Krrrrrrrrrk.
Taeyang held his breath.
The green sand scorpions were just as sensitive to territorial invasion as Aksharon.
If they noticed a large animal like Taeyang entering their domain, they would charge without hesitation.
Krrrrk?
Krrrrrrrrrk.
Fortunately, the scorpions passed by without detecting him.
Taeyang wiped away his cold sweat and only moved again after thoroughly checking his surroundings.
What Taeyang was searching for was the green sand scorpion's favorite snack—a flower that only grew in the eastern forest, the Grass Flower.
As the name suggested, it was a plant difficult to classify as either grass or flower. The green sand scorpions dug up and ate its roots.
If they went too long without consuming Grass Flower, the green sand scorpions would turn yellow, contrary to their name.
"Found it."
Fortunately, he had located the Grass Flower in the outer region.
If he hadn't found any here, he would have had to risk charging straight in, so Taeyang was extremely relieved.
He immediately pulled the Grass Flower from the ground.
True to its reputation as a weed, the roots came up in a massive clump.
Carrying the Grass Flower, Taeyang moved outside the green sand scorpion territory and gathered branches and fallen leaves.
Chewing the roots of the Grass Flower caused paralysis and hallucinations.
On its own it wasn't that strong, but when the sap extracted from pounding the roots was heated, its potency increased dramatically.
Enough to knock out even the green sand scorpions that snacked on the flowers.
Taeyang started a fire by rubbing the wood together.
With moisture-laden branches and leaves, it would have originally been extremely difficult, but stats at the level of twenty-two achievements made hard tasks simple.
Taeyang tore off a portion of his clothing, then ripped half of the Grass Flower's root and wrapped it inside.
Then he slammed it down repeatedly. Bang! Bang!
The cloth quickly became soaked.
"Done."
Taeyang tied the cloth to a branch and placed it directly over the campfire.
When heated, the sap turned into powder.
Taeyang planned to sprinkle that powder onto the remaining half of the root.
Crackle. Crackle.
While it heated, Taeyang never let his guard down.
The smell spreading during the heating process might draw the green sand scorpions.
"Good. Once this is finished, I've essentially collected the green sand scorpion's poison."