Then What About This?
Jinwoo was running around like a madman, trying to replenish the Molotov cocktails he'd used up while the trees on the third floor burned. Since the first ones he'd made proved surprisingly useful, he was now aiming to craft over fifty this time. But just finding empty beer bottles turned out to be a ordeal in itself.
Convenience stores and supermarkets wouldn't sell the empties they'd taken in as deposits, and there were none at the junk shops either. He'd considered buying new beer to empty them himself, but he couldn't possibly drink that much, so he'd simply stored them in his inventory. Just like the saying that even dog shit is hard to find when you need it for medicine, empty beer bottles were surprisingly scarce. In the end, he'd had no choice but to pay the elderly folks who collected scrap paper around the neighborhood 500 won per bottle to gather them.
Even buying gasoline proved difficult. When he went to the gas station with jerry cans, they refused to sell it to him.
"We sell diesel in cans for boilers and heaters, but we can't sell gasoline like that. You're not an arsonist, are you?"
"Arsonist? Of course not. Arsonists don't need three whole jerry cans to start a fire—one plastic bottle is enough. I'm just stocking up because gas prices are going up."
"Alright, I'll trust you. Back in the day, we'd ask for your ID number when someone bought gasoline. People said they were making flower vases with it."
"Flower vases?"
"Oh, you really don't know? Hahaha. Back then, the activist crowd used to call Molotov cocktails 'flower vases.' I guess it's fine to sell you the gas."
Jinwoo had gotten a bit nervous when the man asked if he was an arsonist, but he managed to buy the gasoline without issue. Through the conversation, he also learned some clever tricks. You could simply pour gasoline and thinner into empty beer bottles, but adding Styrofoam or sugar had its own benefits.
"Styrofoam makes the smoke thicker and smell worse, while sugar makes the flames stickier and harder to put out."
"Boss, did you used to make Molotovs too?"
"Well, back in those days, every university student council had their own recipe book for making them. The activist scene knew all about it."
Buying gasoline in jerry cans felt like receiving private tutoring on how to maximize a Molotov's destructive power. For some reason, he had a feeling he shouldn't come back to this particular gas station to buy more.
He also bought several cans of thinner from a paint store, and with that, his materials were ready. In the yard in front of his house, he mixed the gasoline and thinner, then used a bellows pump to inject the mixture into the beer bottles. The smell was surprisingly strong.
"Son. What are you doing? The democratization movement and labor movements ended a long time ago, didn't they? What on earth are you making Molotov cocktails for?"
His father, who had just come home from work, saw what he was doing and asked with clear worry in his voice.
"Oh, this? I'm, uh, thinking of trying out YouTube."
"YouTube? Are you preparing for some kind of protest video? The headquarters isn't even in Korea. Don't tell me you're planning to hit the American embassy? You really shouldn't mess with that place."
"Of course not. I'm thinking of doing some kind of game experiment video—throwing Molotovs in a game versus in real life to show the difference. Like a test camera thing."
"Ah, if it's something like that, I guess it's fine. Still, you should report the fire hazard in advance before experimenting. You know just possessing them is illegal, right? If you're planning to throw them at Changing Group, you'd have to go to America. Their Korean branches are mostly powerless."
"I know. It's really just for an experiment video, so don't worry."
"Oh, and I made a bunch using Bacchus bottles instead of beer bottles. Those are easier to get, and they're smaller so they're good for throwing. That'd make good YouTube content too. Good luck."
Jinwoo was stunned as he watched his father head inside after offering that advice.
"What the... both the guy at the neighborhood gas station and my dad... are they all from the activist scene or something?"
As he continued the repetitive work, he suddenly remembered that he hadn't received a reply from Susan of the American Game Addiction Victims Association. He also realized that James Lee from the FBI, who had introduced him to her, hadn't been in contact for several days either. Maybe something was happening and they couldn't reach out.
"Still, I can get away with it today by saying it's for an experiment video, but I'm worried about what comes next."
He might be able to brush it off once as preparation for a video, but if he kept making Molotov cocktails going forward, it could become a real problem. No matter how careful he was, working with gasoline and thinner carried a constant risk of fire.
"Maybe I need to get a separate house."
Between this Molotov work and needing to melt down the gold he'd brought from the Cliché World to sell it, he would definitely need a separate workspace or house.
The party has entered the 4th floor of the dungeon.
"It looks like there are no more embers even if we dig through the ashes now. We should be able to move."
At Pyutel's report after scouting ahead, the group began moving again. The third floor had burned so completely that they no longer needed the map, but they still retraced their steps to confirm the exit route and searched for a path to the fourth floor. That's when they discovered a passage that seemed to connect to the path leading down to the fourth floor and somewhere else.
"Would you like to check this way first?"
Pyutel seemed to subtly recommend this path over heading straight down, perhaps remembering the reward of knighthood that could be granted if the dungeon connected to another location.
Knighthood. In games and novels, knights were a dime a dozen, but simply becoming a knight allowed one to have their name recorded in the noble registry. It meant becoming a minor lord who could even possess their own estate and manor.
"According to the exploration request conditions, we might be able to receive a knighthood, but let's head down first. We'll check that path later."
As they carefully descended the slope leading to the fourth floor, a damp breeze blew in through the passage this time.
"It seems the fourth floor is a swamp."
It wasn't the kind of muddy swamp where your feet would sink in completely, but rather a wetland where water reached up to the ankles. There were trees growing here and there among the marsh, but it looked like finding monsters on the fourth floor would be difficult. And from a glance, the water seemed like paradise for leeches.
"Master. We have a boat, don't we?"
They did have the boat they'd bought when they went to Hool Swamp, but it wasn't big enough for everyone, and fighting or defending while on a boat would put them at a disadvantage.
"I need to take a short break and offer a prayer to the gods."
When Jinwoo suddenly declared he would rest and pray while descending to the fourth floor, everyone looked puzzled. But after he prayed briefly with his eyes closed, the items he pulled out left them all stunned.
"What is this?"
"They're called chest waders. The gods gifted them to me."
"Om Mani Padme Hum!"
This time, Meni shouted it before Yanne could. Jinwoo had pretended to pray while actually logging out by closing his eyes and sleeping. The moment he woke up on Earth, he'd gone straight to a store selling tidal flat equipment and bought chest waders designed for mudflat work.
"I've never seen clothes with shoes attached before. And this material is fascinating."
"They'll protect you from leeches or poisonous insects that might cling to you in the water. You can just wear them over your clothes."
He'd roughly estimated their heights and foot sizes when buying them, but they all fit perfectly when tried on. With everyone now wearing the chest waders that allowed them to enter the water, they began moving again. Sezanne and Yanne, who had lower stamina, rode in the boat.
"Hmm..."
Something brushed past his foot. He thought it might be a fish, but the others also seemed to feel something bumping into their legs as they looked down with focused expressions.
"It's... slime."
Ranger Danny stirred the water with his sword, then began slashing in all directions. Pyutel and the rangers tensed up at the appearance of slimes and started looking around urgently, saying they needed to get to land immediately.
In Japanese JRPGs, slimes were typically considered beginner monsters—cute droplet-shaped creatures that could be defeated by destroying their core. But real slimes were neither droplet-shaped nor small. There were ones large enough to carry three people in a boat, and even house-sized slimes. Here, slimes were essentially mid-tier monsters.
"We can't see the ground. Let's cut some branches and make a path."
They began cutting branches from the larger trees in the swamp and laying them on the ground to create footing.
"Whoa, here it comes!"
A massive slime has emerged from the water!
The slime rose from the water, its size comparable to a two-story Western-style house. Its body wasn't transparent but opaque, covered in what looked like thick moss. Because of that, they couldn't tell where its core was located.
"Ice Ball!"
Sezanne's ice magic flew forward and struck the slime. The moment the ice ball exploded, it released cold air in all directions.
[Crack! Shatter!]
"Whoa!"
The slime, frozen by the cold, shattered instantly. It broke apart into tiny granules that scattered everywhere, just like reinforced glass exploding.
"Find the core! We have to destroy the core!"
At Sezanne's words, everyone rushed out to search for it, but the slime fragments that had fallen into the water had already melted again, making it impossible to locate the core. And the slimes began to reform.
"So that's why you can't fight slimes in water."
If these giant slimes were the main monsters of the fourth floor, clearing it wouldn't be easy. As the melted slimes tried to merge and grow larger again, Jinwoo converted his mana and shot cold air at the slime.
"Huh? It just freezes."
When the upper part of the growing slime froze, the other pieces couldn't stick to it. It couldn't expand upward and instead began merging again underwater to increase its size. He grabbed the frozen upper portion and poured more cold air into it, and the slime stopped merging altogether. It seemed the core had frozen from the cold as well.
He lifted the frozen slime onto the boat to examine it and found a core the size of a fingernail inside. Having to find and destroy such a tiny core inside a slime the size of a two-story house made dealing with them seem incredibly difficult.
"If it melts, it'll come back to life. So we must destroy the core."
"I have something I want to experiment with, so I'll take this one. By the way, Sezanne, don't you have any other ice magic besides the Ice Ball that explodes on impact?"
"Since I belong to the Tulcherus school that worships fire, I only know Ice Ball."
"Then I'll take the lead. If they're not coming from underwater, we'll freeze them from above and deal with them that way."
Once they'd established a strategy against the giant slimes, they began moving again. They didn't move randomly, though. They headed toward the largest trees or areas with big clusters in the vicinity. When slimes appeared, Jinwoo would freeze their outer layers with cold air from both hands without needing other weapons, then locate where the core was and destroy it with his spear.
It seemed that if they had a proper mage capable of cold magic, clearing the fourth floor would be possible.
"Master, look over there! It looks just like the World Tree!"
On the third day, they spotted an incredibly massive tree in the distance—one that looked like it had come straight out of the movie Avatar. Everyone instinctively felt this must be the heart of the dungeon and headed in that direction.
"Could the branches of the World Tree have created this dungeon?"
"I don't know. We'll have to go and see."
The thought of a World Tree made not only Jinwoo but the entire party feel optimistic. Sezanne, however, remained wary, as if something felt off. And when they entered the shade of the tree that appeared to be the World Tree, Sezanne frowned deeply.
"This tree is not the World Tree."
"It's not? Then what on earth is this tree? Are there trees this big besides the World Tree?"
From the outside, it looked exactly like a perfect World Tree, so the question was inevitable.
"If this were the World Tree, there would naturally be fairies here. But there isn't a single one."
At Sezanne's words, everyone looked around, but there wasn't anything that could be considered a fairy.
"This tree is a fake World Tree created by evil gods who were jealous of the Chief God's World Tree. That's why there are no fairies, and no mana dwells within it either."
"Then... does that mean we have to burn this tree?"