Chapter 11: TOP 11. The Real Game Begins
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 11: TOP 11. The Real Game Begins
With a long yawn and a light stretch, Seo-un checked the position of the sun.
“I didn't get to sleep for long.”
He stepped outside and scanned the perimeter. Sensing no one nearby, he retreated back into the cabin and began his energy circulation.
I need to accumulate as much internal power as possible, even if it’s just a drop more.
With that thought, he submerged himself into the process of Qi Condensation.
There were a few reasons why he felt bold enough to perform Qi Condensation in broad daylight. First, the number of players had dwindled significantly compared to the vast scale of the map. Second, his current location was a mountainous region with zero strategic value; he figured no sane player would bother trekking all the way out here.
But since when did life ever go exactly as planned?
A faint sound reached Seo-un’s ears in the middle of his cultivation. He hurriedly wound down his session and focused every sense on his hearing, his body coiling with tension.
Footsteps. Definitely human.
While most players were butchering each other over the cities and large villages in the center of the magnetic field, some wanderer had strayed all the way to the edge of the mountains. Seo-un cursed his luck. Just as he was nocking a bolt into his crossbow—
Boom!
The cabin door was blown off its hinges with a thunderous roar.
As a violent gust of wind ruffled his hair, Seo-un instinctively swallowed hard.
“Is no one here? I had a feeling it wasn't an empty house...”
At the clear sound of another player's voice, Seo-un raised his crossbow and took aim. Having positioned himself in the corner next to the door just in case, he held his breath and waited for the intruder to enter, remaining as silent as a shadow.
It’s a mage bastard.
The footsteps drew closer until they were right at the threshold. The moment a dark shadow crossed into the cabin and the opponent’s feet became visible, Seo-un pulled the trigger and unleashed his hidden weapons in a single motion.
— Thud! Clang! Clang!
Knowing full well that both attacks would be blocked, Seo-un tossed the crossbow aside and lunged at the visibly flustered man, drawing and throwing two more hidden weapons to keep him occupied.
— Clang!
They were deflected again, but he didn't care. He tackled the small-statured mage—a move he had seen often in martial arts matches—slamming into him with his full body weight. It was his first time ever attempting a tackle—grabbing the opponent's legs with both arms and using his shoulder to drive them backward—but the execution was perfect.
“Askr— gurgle!”
The mage never finished his spell.
A sharp longsword had bypassed his shield and pierced his throat. After a brief moment of coughing up bloody foam, the light faded from his eyes.
“Phew... Haa...”
It hadn't been a particularly difficult fight, but perhaps because he had exerted himself so much, his breath came in ragged gasps. For a long while, Seo-un couldn't let go of the sword he held in a reverse grip. It took him a moment to snap back to his senses.
“Ah! This is no time to be sitting around.”
As he watched the corpse begin to blur and fade, Seo-un closed his eyes and focused on the dead mage’s vitality. Just as he expected, he could clearly feel the human vitality on the verge of dispersing.
Was it warm? Or was it cold?
The sensation shifted wildly depending on his perception, but before the mage’s vitality could scatter, it reacted to Seo-un and was sucked into his mouth in a single, greedy breath.
Seo-un’s eyes snapped open. His pupils flared crimson for a fleeting second before returning to their original color. It didn't take long for the vitality drawn through the Qi Absorption Gate to circulate through his body and settle into his dantian.
When he looked down again, only fresh blood and a square wooden box remained.
“Whew. That’s a massive amount.”
His dantian was now filled with enough internal power that it would have taken him over a hundred days of pure Qi Condensation to achieve.
If I can just absorb a few more...
Greed began to rear its head. However, Seo-un shook his head and spoke aloud.
“Survivor List!”
— Ding!
“There are still 23 people left. Excluding me and that terrifying old man, that’s 21. It’s not time yet.”
He was right. It wasn't yet the time to reveal himself and play aggressively. It was a time to gather and stockpile even more strength.
“Still, since he was a mage, he should have had something useful...”
Trailing off, he opened the wooden box. The first thing that caught his eye was a glass bottle filled with a green liquid. As he picked up the potion, the item description appeared.
[Ding! You have obtained Refined Troll Blood.]
[A medicinal liquid. It is a precious potion that can provide one year of healthy life to those suffering from incurable terminal illnesses.]
“This item is...”
Seo-un’s hand trembled as he held the 'precious' potion.
“It’s total trash!”
He was about to hurl the bottle to the ground but barely managed to stop himself. Taking a deep breath, he shoved the potion into his subspace.
“Of all things, why give me something so useless... This must have been a personal item.”
His intuition was correct. The troll blood wasn't an item provided within the game; it was something the mage had been carrying personally.
“I wonder if items looted here will still exist when I return to the real world.”
The thought crossed his mind briefly, but Seo-un had enough of his own problems to worry about. He moved on to inspect the other items. His touch became meticulous as he felt every piece of clothing the man had been wearing, tossing aside anything that didn't trigger a system notification. He was searching with high hopes for any potential magic items.
[Ding! You have obtained the Oath Bracelet. When equipped, it significantly increases the user's magic success rate.]
“Tsk.”
Since Seo-un currently had nothing that could be called magic, it was a useless trinket. Nevertheless, he shoved the bracelet into his subspace anyway. He searched through the items again, but aside from a bit of beef jerky, nothing else came up.
“He was a beggar.”
Then again, Seo-un realized he couldn't expect much from a mage who was roaming the outskirts like him instead of farming in the center. He decided to be satisfied with having taken the man's vitality.
“21 people, huh...”
It was an awkward number. For now, the magnetic field was still wide, so it wasn't a major issue, but it would be troublesome for Seo-un if this many people continued to survive. They were undoubtedly monsters to begin with, and if such people had farmed well, Seo-un wouldn't stand a chance.
“They’ll end up tearing each other apart eventually. The magnetic field will keep shrinking, after all.”
With that thought, Seo-un turned on his map, looked for his next farming spot, and left the cabin.
*
A week passed. By the morning of the 12th day, Seo-un, who hadn't managed to find any decent items, realized just how lucky his initial farming run had been. He continued to raid mountain cabins and small warehouses in remote areas, but all he found were things like hidden weapons, bolts, and beef jerky.
There’s a reason why everyone is forced to gather in the large towns and cities.
In the game Log that Seo-un used to enjoy, players also tended to gravitate toward the same high-value areas. Even so, he had no intention of changing his playstyle now. There were still 88 days left in the game. He had to play the long game.
Besides, Seo-un had a certain conviction.
“Survivor List!”
— Ding!
“I knew it!”
The count had dropped by one since yesterday. Sometimes one person would die over several days; other times, two would die in a single day. For some reason, this guy named Nam Sa-gwang had been thinning out the players indiscriminately lately. Since all the recent deaths were by his hand, it was clear that Nam Sa-gwang was actively hunting other players down.
And seeing as he’s killing everyone regardless of whether they’re martial artists or not, he must have obtained something.
Just in case, he looked back through the game-over list. Nam Sa-gwang had only started his rampage five days ago. There had to be a reason why someone who had been surviving quietly until then suddenly started slaughtering players. Seo-un’s guess was that Nam Sa-gwang had obtained a very powerful item.
“He probably thinks that if he could find it, others can too, so he’s going wild. He likely wants the game to end as quickly as possible.”
Thinking this, Seo-un felt he had no choice but to move even further into the outskirts, to places where no one would think to go. He hoped that Nam Sa-gwang would eliminate as many players as possible in the meantime.
“Let’s just hope we don't run into each other.”
Muttering the words like a prayer, he moved on.
Eight more days of fruitless farming passed. Seo-un was currently hiding in the bushes, deep in thought.
Hmm. What should I do...
As the magnetic field narrowed, he had been farming along its edge, but the center of the field had shifted to focus on a large town. Naturally, it was now difficult to find forests like this, let alone mountainous terrain. By the end of today, this forest would likely fall outside the magnetic field.
He had to decide whether to run into the center now to secure a spot and start camping, or to keep circling the outskirts until the very end.
Unlike the mountains, it’ll be easy to get spotted by those who’ve already taken positions in an open area like this...
What made him hesitate even more was the current number of survivors.
“Survivor List!”
— Ding!
Looking at the recent list, every single kill was by Nam Sa-gwang.
If he was going to kill them, he should have killed just one more. Why leave exactly one person? And I don't know what kind of item he got, but this madman has been getting kills with Sword Aura instead of Sword Qi for the past few days.
He had clearly obtained a tremendous martial arts manual or an elixir. At the thought of an elixir, the mansion visible in the distance became even more tempting. It was a massive estate that clearly belonged to a high-ranking noble; he couldn't even guess how many rooms it had. Looking at it made him want to run inside immediately.
Stay calm. Stay calm. There’s no way a house that big hasn't been looted yet. It would be too pathetic to die here because of greed.
The rewards started from the TOP 10. If he died at 11th place, all his hard work would go down the drain. Furthermore, the biggest problem was that he had no idea where the remaining players were hiding.
The magnetic field had narrowed considerably, barely encompassing one large city, a few villages, a plain, and a few mansions. Right behind the bushes where Seo-un was hiding, the magnetic field was practically touching his backside.
From the looks of it, everyone is probably hunkered down and wary of Nam Sa-gwang. There are 80 days left. The magnetic field has shrunk by more than half since the start. Come to think of it, the shrinking of the field doesn't seem to be directly proportional to the remaining game time. At this rate, it’ll eventually be restricted to just one small village...
Seo-un looked up at the sun still high in the sky and then at the distant mansion, trying to calm his racing heart. Suppressing the urge to run toward the massive estate, he sat down on the ground and crossed his legs.
I might as well cultivate.
Determined to suppress his excitement and kill time, he began his Qi Condensation. As he filled his dantian, the sun eventually set, and darkness filled the surroundings.