The Constellations' Game, Laika

Truth be told, the Forest of Beginning is a fairly dangerous place.

Of course, that's by Level 3 standards.

But when the cash-farming hero Dave — armed with an iron shovel and with a promise of instant-fire chicken riding on his back — steps into the picture...

Level 3 or not, things play out a little differently.

To the man's eyes, that unruly reindeer was nothing more than a fine ATM that spat out a single leaf of cabbage every time it was caught.

Why a single leaf of cabbage, you ask?

Because the average market value of the items a 'Wild Reindeer' drops comes out to roughly 1 LP, by feel.

Aw, I've already caught them all?

Which is why it was a considerable disappointment. Wild Reindeer are not exactly common spawns.

Plain Reindeer without any modifier to their name were scattered all over the ground, but Wild Reindeer were fairly rare — about one for every five.

Being the scarcer beast, the junk items they dropped probably commanded slightly better prices... but still. Would it kill them to spawn a bit more generously, just for today?

Well, I did make a decent haul, though.

A rough glance at everything I'd looted so far suggested it would fetch at least 7 LP if I sold the lot.

Earned in two hours, that works out to an hourly wage of a cool 35,000 won.

"Haah...!"

Keep burning through deer at today's pace, and I'd be pulling in a daily wage north of 300,000 won.

Dopamine suddenly came gushing out of me like a fountain of wealth.

So this is... what it means to be a cash-farming hero?

Come to think of it, maybe the reason I never managed to flower my talent was simply a lack of motivation?

Had the fairy handed me a little pocket change with every level-up, I might have slain the Demon King and returned home a few hundred years ago already.

"......"

Enough daydreaming. Back to reality.

Truthfully, there was no way the money would keep flowing like this just from catching reindeer forever.

Monsters didn't respawn infinitely like in a real game, and once I started flooding the market with reindeer byproducts, prices would sag too.

So it was time to shelve the silly thoughts and move on to the next plan I'd already mapped out.

Honestly, running around hunting more unruly reindeer here would be a waste.

Looking at my experience bar, I was just about at Level 5.

And from Level 5 onward, I had a 'next step' pre-designed specifically for cash-farming purposes.

So first, hit Level 5, and then—

I immediately opened up the Traits tab.

Endless rows of trait lists scrolled up before my eyes, but there was no need to read them.

Why, you ask?

Because I memorized them all ages ago.

I'd decided exactly what to invest in even before entering the gate.

So I put the point in right away.

Unless I remember wrong, this one was on the Awakened Wiki's list of 'Traits You Should Never Pick'.

Wouldn't you be better off picking literally anything else...

It probably earned that lukewarm write-up because it offers no stat or spec upgrades whatsoever.

"Heh heh."

But that's fine by me.

I'm a cash-farming hero with no particular interest in saving the world.

I mean, it's not like I'm going to go hunt a Death Knight or anything, right?

If I can sell off a bit of future glory to triple my current hourly wage, isn't that precisely the correct path of cash-farming?

And besides, traits can be reset later if I really need to.

So for now — enjoy the moment.

Double re-harvesting off a single corpse!

Money, being photocopied?!

What's more, once I'm eventually able to farm somewhere like a wyvern's nest, only players with this 'de-boning' trait will be able to harvest Dragon Bone.

As far as I can tell, almost nobody on the Earth server knows this yet.

If they did, there's no way this trait would've been rated F-rank.

Oh, you're saying a wyvern is stronger than an orc or an ogre?

Naturally. Even if it sits on the lower end of the dragonkin tiers, it's still dragonkin. Comparing it to some orc or ogre is simply...

Come to think of it, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, aren't I.

Made a little money and immediately lost all sense of proportion.

I should probably exercise a little restraint.

I was humming a little tune with those thoughts in my head when—

an unexpected problem reared its head.

I used the shovel for de-boning, and...

the omakase snapped in half.

Lee Siyul, an ordinary job seeker in South Korea, spent each and every day in a state of relentless grind.

Wake up early for a light jog, freshen up with a brisk shower, then head straight to the study room. Spend the whole morning locked in on recorded lectures, grab lunch, then attend her job-hunting study group. After that came stops at two different cram schools, and by the time she dragged herself home she was utterly spent — that was her daily routine.

"So come on, let's just relax and enjoy today for once. Why's your face all sour when we haven't seen each other in ages?"

But today, for once, was a day of rebellion.

Rebellion being a generous term — it amounted to eating malatang instead of gimbap for lunch, and skipping the job-hunt study group to catch a movie with her rare best friend, Jung Hyunwoo.

Even that much left her conscience uneasy.

Now that she was an adult, she understood all too well how tight things were for her family.

"Phew. Can't even enjoy myself properly. I've still got Mom and Dad watching my every move."

The one genuinely bright note was that, recently, something good had finally happened at home for the first time in ages.

Her older brother, missing for ten years, had come back as if by a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠miracle — and her parents' faces had brightened for the first time in forever.

"Still, things have been looking up around your house lately, right?"

"That's... true, yeah."

There had been a time when she resented her brother for vanishing out of nowhere... but having him back was genuinely welcome, and she was truly grateful for it.

It was just that his behavior over the past few days seemed, well, off, and it weighed on her mind.

Come to think of it, he's been searching 'gate this' and 'gate that' on his phone every single day lately... He's not planning something weird, is he?

He'd even been spouting nonsense about putting his 'hero experience' to use and making money...

There was no way a non-awakened person could enter a gate, but the quiet anxiety gnawed at her anyway.

How much of it should she believe — the brother who rambled on about things that sounded half-delusional yet somehow looked completely composed? She honestly had no idea.

And right as she was mulling over those thoughts, her friend launched into his own nonsense.

"Heh heh, quit worrying so much, Siyul. Wait just a little longer and this hyung-nim right here will take care of you for life."

"What is that even supposed to mean?"

"It's a secret, but... actually, this is why I asked to meet today."

"What...?"

Her already tangled mood grew even more chaotic.

"I went into a gate last week?"

"Excuse me, what?"

"This hyung-nim's about to become a ranker any day now, and when I do, I'll hire you as my manager. That's the plan, so just you wait."

"Are you insane?"

By the time Hyunwoo finished his story, Siyul was in genuine shock.

After all, she was only learning today that Jung Hyunwoo — her closest friend in the world — was an awakened hunter.

"This stays absolutely secret from my sister, got it? Promise me."

"Sure, whatever. I'm calling Yeoreum-unnie right now."

"No! Come on, please, I'm begging you!"

And in that very moment, one grim premonition forced its way into her mind, unbidden.

Don't tell me that Lee Gunyul bastard... all that 'hero this, hero that' talk — it wasn't just talk, was it?

The instant the thought crossed her mind — that her mother's son might actually be an awakened hunter too—

Drip—

A cold sweat ran down Siyul's spine.

There had been that dreadful(?) little incident with the snapped deer velvet antler, but from that point on, everything went smoothly.

Once I'd picked up a pocketknife, no such misfortune ever occurred again.

Thanks to that, the de-boning trait performed even better than I'd hoped, and this self-serve double-drop event quickly weighed down my inventory.

And so I hunted, losing all track of time.

But when I thought back on my beta-server runs...

this was an absurd state of affairs.

Grinding the Forest of Beginning is fun? That can't be right.

Of every stretch of gameplay in this Laika world...

the Forest of Beginning grind was, by design, the most tedious part of all.

From the Level 4–5 range, where experience requirements began climbing exponentially, all the way up to Level 20 — the maximum achievable before class advancement.

A stretch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with no real quests to speak of, where nothing but repetitive grinding awaited. Even within my endlessly looping life as a hero, these were without question some of my most painful memories.

Which is why the situation right now simply refused to make sense to me.

Smack down the forest's game, diligently harvest the corpses with the de-boning trait, then neatly stack the loot into the inventory — from that simple routine...

I had never once imagined I'd derive this kind of unreasonable fun.

Whoa, at this rate I'm honestly close to 50 LP, aren't I?

Day one had gone far better than expected.

Pulling in 50 LP from nothing in a single day blew well past even my own target—

And the pace of the level-ups was equally unbelievable.

Even though I'd sunk a fair chunk of time into de-boning every single kill.

"Level 9 already?"

I genuinely had no idea I was this good.

Why did I underestimate myself?

Because when I actually played the beta, I was never this fast.

Level 9 on day one... I never got this far this quickly in any of my runs.

Even in my most recent run, where I'd ground things out to the bitter end, I usually hit Levels 9–10 on day two.

Back then I'd been growing alongside the fairy, sleeping six hours a day...

Level 10 — my current level — was what I'd reached right around the 30-hour mark.

So I'm running at roughly three times the pace, then.

Could it be a difference in mindset?

Even so, the gap feels too big for that to explain it.

Frankly, I had no idea how this was possible.

There was no way the live server was easier than the beta.

Apparently, some latent talent I never knew I had bloomed when I returned to Earth.

A win's a win, though, right?

So does that mean I can now slay not just wyverns but the Demon King himself?

Not a chance.

If an F-rank hero has attained some enlightenment... wouldn't that make him roughly an E-rank now?

In other words, I've merely gotten somewhat better at making money, that's all.

Yes — I'd say exactly that much is the perfect amount.

"Hmm."

Lost in those thoughts, I returned to the village and sorted out my entire inventory, and precisely 53 LP had accumulated in my hands.

Wearing a satisfied expression, I set about writing my business log.

If you want to accumulate money without wasting a single coin, keeping a household ledger is non-negotiable.

More important than how the money was made is where it was spent.

Leaked, wasted cash was the one thing I could never tolerate.

In that sense, today's business log was perfect.

Buying the de-boning knife added 3 LP of extra spending, but I'd call that a thoroughly justified investment.

Anyway, roughly ten hours had passed since I logged in.

At long last, I resolved to clock out.

When I stepped outside, the sun had already gone down.

I hadn't exactly planned to stay this long.

But what can you do when it's this much fun?

"Heh heh heh."

Still, clocking out doesn't mean the workday is over.

One task remained on the docket.

Before I knew it, I'd boarded the subway out of the gate, and before I knew it again, I was headed toward Seoul Station.

The sun's set — so where could I possibly be going now, you ask?

To exchange today's earnings, obviously.

I like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠KRW a good deal more than LP.

It was only about eight o'clock, so I wasn't yet past the hour where my parents would start worrying.

If I exchanged the LP and ordered them some chicken, wouldn't Dad be pleased?

If they asked where the money came from, I'd just say I did a day of temp work at a friend's company, that's all.

As for the truth — that I earned it inside a gate — I planned to come clean only once I'd made at least a hundred million won.

The point where they'd find it too hard to tell me never to enter a gate again.

Lost in those thoughts, I arrived at Seoul Station before I knew it, and finding my destination wasn't difficult at all.

It would have been hard not to notice the colossal pillar of pure white light towering over the plaza in front of Seoul Station.