#18. Opportunity (1). The Boy's Will Was Impressive.
His will had been tremendous.
Originally, the boy had wanted to save the people of that world, but surviving in such a wretched environment and constantly striving was no easy task.
If it were me, I would never be able to do it.
The boy clenched his fist and thrust it forward.
Glaring at the lake as if he would burn it to ash, he poured every ounce of strength into his hand.
Looking at his trembling arms, I realized he was putting in genuine effort.
“If I train, will I be able to split the lake?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of feeling is it? I can even sense the sensation of moving inside my body. But what kind of feeling is it to train for the power to split the lake?”
“Umm…”
The boy couldn’t answer.
He didn’t know either.
“The angel said…”
“Angel?”
“The angel said that if I train diligently like this, someday I will be able to split the lake and split the sea.”
The boy was blindly clinging to a single casual remark the angel had tossed off and stubbornly training.
“Huaap!”
The boy thrust his arms forward with renewed vigor and let out a shout.
The lake didn’t even twitch.
“Of course.”
The power the boy wanted could be found near Third City.
Near Third City stood the Temple of the Sea, and to claim the Trident, one had to defeat the elite monster guarding it.
“There’s an insanely strong barrier….”
Because of the barrier, it was impossible to brute-force it with raw physical power.
There were multiple ways to break the barrier, but following the standard route with the boy was the correct path.
Since it was the first time, I decided to follow the standard route.
Reading about it and actually seeing it were vastly different, so my information on the details was probably quite faded.
“The angel said that, huh…”
Yoo Dahui muttered and stared at me fixedly.
She seemed to be silently asking what I would do next.
“Ah, what a pity. Is there anything we can help with?”
“I’ll help you, big sister.”
Yoo Dahui quickly covered her rear remark.
The boy frowned and turned to Yoo Dahui.
“I don’t really need help, but… ah. The angel said to find the blue pillars. If I find the blue pillars, a path will open…”
“Blue pillars?”
“Yes. There are five in total across the 1st floor. But I don’t have time to search because I can’t miss a single day of training…”
“I see. I understand. If the angel told you that, it might be something you need to obtain that power?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it probably isn’t just something he casually mentioned.”
The boy had lingering attachment to the blue pillars, but he thought training was more important, so he hadn’t gone to search for them.
Since there were so many players, if he asked them, they might eventually find them. That was his mindset.
Of course, the boy wasn’t weak.
This pitifully weak creature was using players better than anyone else.
Of course, a player who was too free to accept quests without any reward didn’t exist.
Only a regressor overflowing with time would help this guy.
Win-win.
We helped him, and he provided the power we wanted.
A perfect trade.
Yoo Dahui happily accepted the quest.
“Great! We’ll go look for them. Do you train here every day?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come back once I find the blue pillars.”
Once the conversation ended, the boy immediately dove back into training with terrifying focus.
With that level of concentration, even if I held the sword, its sharpness would be fried, I thought.
Of course, it was a joke.
Sharpening a sword wasn’t something you could achieve just by working hard.
“Why are you chatting for so long?”
“That kid wants to split the lake, so I listened a bit.”
We merged with the Elysha party.
Yoo Dahui was subtly glaring at Elena.
Seeing Yoo Dahui’s sudden burst, I could sense a strange hostility radiating from her.
If I could feel it, Elena had to know.
Yoo Dahui hated her.
Yet Elena didn’t show even a hint of it.
There were probably multiple complex reasons she was hiding it.
We left the lake.
We planned to continue hunting.
More coins were always better.
I couldn’t stop.
In total, we earned 20,000 coins.
The toad spawn rate wasn’t high enough to make more than that impossible.
“Dahui! Let’s head back soon!”
Elysha wanted to end the hunt.
Since more than half the party was elves, we could no longer continue hunting.
Having hunted near the Safe Zone, we returned to First City in no time.
Fireplaces set up throughout the village were acting as street lamps.
Surprisingly lucky, but the overly common pub made the mood feel shitty.
We entered the shop and bought appropriate bedding.
One to lay on the floor, one for each of us.
We put them in the inventory and left the shop.
How long had it been?
“Elysha, I’m thinking of having a drink with Jinwoo.”
“Eh? Suddenly?”
Yoo Dahui clung to me with arms crossed.
Her gaze shifted to Elena, then returned.
Elysha answered indifferently.
“Ah, got it. Then I’ll just go in and rest. Elin, Elbaren, you two rest on your own.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Elin didn’t spout nonsense about having to protect the princess.
He understood that Elena, standing behind Elysha, would take care of it on her own.
Our party scattered in different directions.
“You’re really drinking? Here?”
“Yeah. Why? You don’t want to drink?”
Her sweet eyes suggested she was sending a signal for a round.
“No. I do want to drink, but…”
“Then let’s go. Why are you trying to escape? You’re making me want to eat you alive.”
Yoo Dahui grabbed my forearms with both hands and opened her mouth wide, pretending to devour me.
“…I really want to stuff my dick into that petite mouth…”
I wanted to force it in, but I couldn’t actually do it because she would bite me to pieces.
“Let’s go in. Today we’re drinking and getting drunk!”
Yoo Dahui swaggered into the massive hut.
Watching her rear from behind, which would leave me soaked in sweat, a thought crossed my mind.
If I refused here, would I just masturbate? I wouldn’t go looking for another man….
If I didn’t have the fear that Yoo Dahui might meet another man, I’d be lying.
So I was doing everything I could to minimize that fear—the probability that Yoo Dahui might meet another man.
Yoo Dahui didn’t approach men first.
She could only have contact with a man if he needed her.
Through regression, she learned his abilities, and if he needed her in the current situation, their relationship would slowly deepen.
But now?
It was me—King Jinwoo—who was solving everything.
Unlike the Yoo Dahui in the novel, the current Yoo Dahui had never been blocked.
There was no reason for her to seek another man.
“She can’t become useless.”
Even while suspected of being a fake male, the reason I could stay with Yoo Dahui was because I was filling in the information gaps she lacked from regression.
She seemed to have some soft feelings for me, but who knew how long that would last.
Top-class players—strong, smart, and good-looking….
“Those fucking bastards…”
I entered the massive hut.
A table was set up, but the atmosphere felt like something the ancient primitives would have.
If we had sails and ships, we could go anywhere, but with just cups and alcohol, could we get drunk anywhere?
“Oh, good.”
As soon as I looked, my stomach was already full of alcohol.
The world was spinning.
“Heh heh, Jinwoo got drunk?”
“No? I’m not drunk.”
“You are. Look at your tongue getting twisted. How can you not be drunk?”
Yoo Dahui looked lively.
“…No appetizers and you’re already tasting your tongue? Why are you sticking it out? Are you a snake?”
Yoo Dahui answered with a creepy smile.
I had to wear a mask to eat, yet I was about to be eaten myself.
I thought of Elena.
“If there’s something that can instantly sober me up, sneak it into my hut. If not, find a way. If not, my mind will be at the limit.”
I had already sent the command, so she would handle it on her own.
Since I could use the teleport gate, there was plenty of time to fetch it.
Yoo Dahui downed a glass of the full cup in one go and said,
“You seem pretty tipsy now. Should we head out soon?”
“What the…?”
“Uhh. You’re already drunk too, so there’s no need to drink more. What’s the point of staying here?”
Yoo Dahui smiled lecherously.
Without passing through my brain, my cock began to harden.
At that moment, someone approached Yoo Dahui from behind.
It was the beastmen.
Four beastmen came over to our table and started working.
From the bulge in their lower bodies, I could guess what they wanted.
If it weren’t for the leather they wore around their hips, I would have been face-to-face with something quite shocking.
They would probably start swearing too.
They naturally began talking to Yoo Dahui.
“You graduated from the academy today?”
“Yes.”
“Early graduation? Today isn’t the day you graduate.”
“Yes.”
Yoo Dahui responded coldly to the beastmen.
She furrowed her brows as if annoyed by the interruption.
She was covering her nose, probably because of their unique scent.
Beastmen emitted their own peculiar scent.
But that scent was so extreme that it spanned from perfect match to absolute no.
If it matched, you would instantly feel it, but if it didn’t, just sitting next to them would feel disgusting.
A strange scent was slowly rising even from beside me.
“You’ve had a lot to drink?”
One of the beastmen casually sat next to me.
From the fluffy fur pattern covering his upper arms and the state of his tail, it was clear he was a tiger beastman.
His human-like parts suggested he had quite a bit of human blood mixed in.
His beastman features were very faint.
“The others….”
Three males and one female.
Compared to the female being a tiger beastman, the males were cat, rabbit, and pig….
Even if purebred, their fundamentals were worse than mixed beastmen.
“Is this one the queen, or not?”
The males were probably not eating the female but rather exploiting her like slaves.
Coin shuttle, that feeling.
“Ah, my head’s spinning.”
In a hazy state, I focused on the conversation between Yoo Dahui and the beastmen in front of me.
One-sided questioning, second proposal, and the iron wall of Yoo Dahui sensei.
“Ah, why don’t we go out and drink one more?”
“Get lost. Just leave. You smell disgusting.”
The male beastmen clung desperately, as if pleading.
They seemed to be watching someone’s eyes.
“She’s the queen.”
They were fidgeting while watching the female tiger beastman’s eyes.
The pig beastman grabbed Yoo Dahui’s arm.
It looked like he was going to drag her away by force.
“Hey, let’s force her away.”
“Ah, you bastards, don’t touch me! I told you to get out!”
“Kyaa!”
At that moment, Yoo Dahui exploded.
The pig beastman rolled on the floor.
—- [This is a Safe Zone.] [PK is impossible.] —-
No more actions were allowed.
Yoo Dahui rolled her feet in frustration.
“Jinwoo. Let’s go home.”
“Eh, eh…”
I forcibly held onto the alcohol fog that wouldn’t let me sober up and followed Yoo Dahui’s back.
“Hey. Human female.”
“Ah, really… why are you doing this to me….”
After leaving the pub, the beastmen followed us out.
The female tiger beastman called Yoo Dahui over.
Yoo Dahui suppressed her anger as best she could and turned around.
“Hand him over to me.”
“Hah?”
“I smell a familiar scent. It’s the scent of our tribe’s hero, Ho-ko…”
Ho-ko….
“He’s probably in the 7th floor now…?”
One of the strongest players in the party that had raided the Tower of Struggle as an ancient spirit.
Even though Yoo Dahui had just joined the 7th floor, he wasn’t going to yield that easily.
“You know Ho-ko? Of course… there’s something there, huh?!”
The female tiger beastman looked at me as if she had found what she was looking for.
“Eh… no way…”
I couldn’t say that.
My brain wouldn’t let me stop talking.
Yoo Dahui’s head turned with a creak and glared at me.
The glare felt sharp.
“…Kim Jinwoo. You still hiding something from me?”
Yoo Dahui’s tone was lethal, the alcohol fog completely vanishing.
I tried to look away and could only stare straight ahead.
At that moment, another tiger friend fired a shot.
Yoo Dahui’s gaze shifted to the beastmen.
“Human female! Hand that man over to me!”
“Shut your mouth, you bastards!”
“What? You bastards?”
“Ah. Why are there so many women after Kim Jinwoo? Annoying…”
—- [This is a Safe Zone.] [PK is impossible.] —-
“Dahui. The system said not to curse…”
“Kim Jinwoo, you’ll die later.”
“Yo…”
Yoo Dahui whispered into my ear and walked forward with heavy steps.
“You think I’ll be scared because I’m a tiger? Come at me, you bastards.”
“Duel? I’m fine with that.”