67. A Notification Glittering Gold
67. A Notification Glittering Gold
***
Whirr.
Naturally retrieving the Crescent-Moon Weight, Serin took a look around.
"..."
The pitch-black darkness still filled the entire cave, securing only about a hand's breadth of visibility ahead. Beyond that, it was hard to make out the cave's internal terrain or even what was there.
Serin, who had turned her gaze downward like that,
confirmed the carnage she had created.
Blood strewn across the floor and countless corpses.
Step.
Even just shifting her feet slightly revealed pools of blood.
A space littered with all sorts of equipment. In the end, it seemed she had dealt with all of them.
Step.
She could have avoided the chunks of monster flesh, but instead Serin trampled right over them as her red lips moved.
"Looks like that's the end of the first wave."
There were none for now.
At least, that was how it felt to me.
It seemed like more attacks could come later, and it was definitely not a place to let your guard down, as expected of a party hunting ground.
More than anything, there were too many restrictions.
The faintest sound was the precursor to an attack. Inside the cave, where every direction was shrouded in thick darkness, the dwarves' presence was so nearly erased by that darkness that you could only barely sense them once they had reached truly close range.
[Before anything else, please change the settings]
[Wow what the lololololol]
[That's so unfair for real]
[Why do you have to step on the corpses?;]
[They're monsters, who cares]
[Even a horror movie wouldn't show it this graphically lololol]
[Rin's behavior is so different from her character, why is she such a chad;]
[More than anything, the way she talks all sweetly while stepping on monster corpses gives me whiplash lololololol]
[Rin, the way you swing the Crescent-Moon Weight is seriously so pretty!!! T_TTTTTTTTTT]
While looking at the chat, she realized her mistake and immediately manipulated the hologram to switch from 'Gore Mode' to 'Normal Mode'.
Then the chunks of flesh were instantly mosaicked.
Opaque square boxes covered the monster corpses, then turned them into mosaicked shapes that were no longer unpleasant to look at.
`...?`
Then, at the edge of her vision, a blinking notification message caught her eye.
*
————
Acquired 'Eye of a Demon-Corrupted Dwarf' x17.
————
*
Whether auto-looting had activated, a hologram indicating that she had acquired items was floating there.
"Eye of a Demon-Corrupted Dwarf..."
It looked like the kind of junk item you could sell to a shop, but she wondered why they had to make a junk item out of something as unpleasant as eyes.
And since the count was 17, she figured the number of dwarves she had just killed must have been 17, so she opened her inventory to check.
Among the items scattered about in an untidy mess, she spotted an item highlighted as new.
She checked the detailed information.
*
————
Eye of a Demon-Corrupted Dwarf
- Description: The eye of a dwarf whose entire eye has been stained blood-red by demonic energy corruption. It appears to be used as a special alchemy ingredient.
- Alchemy Workshop sale price: 12,500 silver coins.
- Cannot sell to general stores.
————
*
It was absurd that a junk item couldn't be sold to general stores, but she wondered if the sale price was high.
"Hey. Viewers, is 12,500 silver coins expensive for a junk item?"
[Isn't that super expensive?]
[Don't dwarf junk items usually go for over 10,000 silver?]
[Yeah yeah, it's fucking expensive. There are even fixed dwarf farming parties because of that junk item]
[Wow, but this is really soloable]
[Isn't it only possible because it's Rin?]
[If Rin grinds, she'd make a fortune, right? Wow, how is the dwarf cave soloable, what the hell]
[Why would she even grind in the first place lolol. If you're Rin, you make a fortune just by turning on your stream]
[For real]
[She's not some cash-farming parasite, what grinding lolol]
Step.
While watching the chat, she slowly moved her feet when a familiar word caught her eye.
'A cash-farming parasite? Is there such a thing?'
Farming for cash.
To interpret the term, it was the act of selling in-game currency or items and converting them into real-world money. Now that she thought about it, it was only natural that such a thing existed.
The current dominant game with overwhelming market share, and its genre was even an RPG. On top of that, it was a game with player-to-player trading, so it would be strange if there weren't users farming for cash.
"In the dwarf cave, are all the monsters dwarf-types like just now?"
Inside the darkness-shrouded cave, I couldn't even make out the terrain or tell where I was going, but I wondered whether only dwarves like the ones just now would appear.
[Only dwarf types appear, but]
[The monster design itself is a bundle of variables, so they probably won't all feel the same?]
[Yeah yeah, just now too, it was only easy because it was Rin. Each dwarf is full of personality, so they're annoying to deal with]
[So it's a place that gets exhausting as you farm]
[For dwarves, there usually aren't parties unless it's a fixed party]
`A bundle of variables, huh.`
She thought it was a surprisingly interesting design.
Well, even the same monster would get boring if you met it in the same place with the same pattern every time. Adding some variation did sound fun.
'But do grinding games usually add variables?'
Seeing the chat talk about fixed parties and junk item prices and such, it seemed like grinding was practically forced, so she wondered if it was right to add variables to monsters in a game like that.
...Honestly, whether that was the case or not didn't matter much to me.
I had no intention of grinding. I had just come to kill some monsters and blow off steam.
The difficulty that felt like a party hunting ground seemed, by my standards, like a decent place to swing the Crescent-Moon Weight.......
Swish!
Swoosh!
Swish-swish-swish!
Seeing them shoot arrows like that in this narrow cave, it actually seemed a bit much.
"In the darkness... isn't ranged attacking a bit too much?"
Muttering that, she quickly grabbed the Crescent-Moon Weight directly with her hand.
Thud!
The moment she kicked off the floor, she twisted her body, and among the arrows flying from the front, she deflected only the ones aiming for her head and heart.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
The rebound force felt at the moment of impact when deflecting the arrows.
With that feeling, as if she might get addicted to it, she hurled the weight in the direction the arrows had come from, as if throwing it hard.
—Explosive Spike.
Boom!
Along with a deafening sound as if the spot where the weight landed had exploded, she faintly saw several dwarves moving. In that state, she extended the Crescent-Moon Weight once more.
Whoosh!
The moment I confirmed that the tip of the Crescent-Moon Weight had shot straight through a dwarf's head, I quickly twisted the hand holding it.
Screeech!
The dwarf impaled on the weight by its head was dragged along by the weight and crashed into the other fleeing dwarves.
Thwack!
Crash-bang!
The sight of the dwarf's corpse tangling with two fleeing dwarves and falling over. The moment she retrieved the weight, she kicked off the ground and launched her body into the air.
"This place... doesn't seem like a good hunting ground."
Twisting her body in midair, those words slipped out without her realizing.
Swish! Swoosh!
She felt a faint sensation as arrows grazed past the red cloth clothing on her chest and legs, and her expression twisted.
System-wise, her clothes weren't torn or pierced, but something about it felt disgusting.
She could understand monsters that were bundles of variables. But she felt like mixing ranged monsters into those variables was a bit much.
—Jeolyeon.
In midair, she raised the Crescent-Moon Weight high and swung it down diagonally at the two tangled, fallen dwarves, as if striking down at them.
Slaaash!
Whirr!
The moment the weight, which had split the bodies of the two fallen dwarves, drew a crescent moon and returned to her hand.
Swoosh!
Swish!
Clang! Clang!
Without a moment to breathe, she deflected two arrows in succession, and with her other hand, she gripped the cord connected to the end of the Crescent-Moon Weight.
Screeeeech!
Along with the sound of the cord being pulled taut, the moment she released the hand that had gripped the cord, she thrust her right hand forward quickly, as if using that pulled tension.
Like light splitting the darkness, the blood-tinged Crescent-Moon Weight shot out swiftly.
It drew an exceedingly clean trail of blood.
Thwack!
At its end came a sound like a head bursting. She rotated her body just like that and used another skill.
—Single Kick.
A Dancer's aerial combo skill. Normally, it was a skill used to strike the empty air to gain propulsion in midair.
But when she used it on the ground, a completely different scene unfolded. She couldn't gain the full advantage of the skill as she would in the air, but at least it was possible to use it for the purpose of gaining momentary rebound force.
Rotating her body, as if shooting toward the empty air where there was nothing, her blood-tinged leg struck out as if lashing.
Boom!
Using that rebound force, she rotated her body even faster and swung the weight quickly. A preparatory motion to swing the extended weight again just before it hit the ground.
The trail of blood glowed faintly once more and began to dance in the air at a bizarre angle.
Thwack!
When the sound like another head bursting rang out, she felt that all the presences she had sensed had vanished.
Step.
The leg that had lashed the empty air landed softly on the ground, and when she pulled the connected cord with force.
Whirr!
The weight returned to her hand with familiar ease.
"...Hoo."
Just as she was about to catch her breath at the feeling that the series of actions had connected like one grand musical score.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling!
Suddenly, an unfamiliar congratulatory sound rang loudly in her ears.
'...?'
Wondering what that sound was, she checked the stream, but there was no donation message.
She began to wonder if it might be a bug where a donation hadn't been displayed.
"Um, viewers. Was there anyone who donated?"
[Wow holy shit, this is art... there's a reason artists go broke]
[Seriously, everyone has to watch Rin's stream even if they don't play Another World lolololol]
[For real, people who don't play Another World should watch it even more]
[When you watch Rin, you really start wondering if movements like that are possible]
[?Why donations]
[Wow, I can't help but admire while watching]
[???]
[Are you asking for donations?]
[Lolol wow, but seriously, she moves so prettily that I actually want to donate]
[For real, if I were a chaebol, I'd have made a huge donation right away lololol]
[Yeah right, next viewer]
[She just casually chains skills together like breathing, and I can't help but admire while watching, insane]
[Maybe because the character customization is pretty, every single thing looks pretty, seriously]
'It wasn't a donation?'
The congratulatory sound just now might have been a different congratulatory sound because the donation amount was different, she thought.
But looking at the chat reaction, no donation had gone off.......
—Ding!
『Ryuell donated 50,000 won!』
《You said you wanted donations, so I donated》
—Ding!
『Ras404 donated 50,000 won!』
《^-^ Here, a donation.》
"No. I didn't actually mean for you to donate. Anyway... Ryuell, Ras404, thank you so much for the 50,000 won each."
She conveyed her thanks while flustered, but something felt off.
The donations that had just rung were clearly being displayed properly on the stream screen.
'There's no way I misheard.'
Then she saw that one of the hologram notifications was glittering gold, unlike before.