Chapter 23. The Deal (4)

Swoosh!

‘Damn! We were caught way too quickly! I’ll snatch the token when the Blood Hunter and the Berserker Tail turn their attention away! No, if possible, I’ll even take the artifact!’

Fran and his subordinates were among the most active scavengers in Sector E.

They loved this job.

Under the pretext of taking tokens, they could plunder all the wealth and artifacts that players possessed.

The artifacts they collected in this way significantly boosted their combat power, and sometimes they even managed to get their hands on skill books.

Moreover, the tokens could be resold to the top players for a very high price.

Additionally,

There were many places that required the bodies of players.

Slaves, sex slaves, laborers, livestock, test subjects.

The purposes and needs were diverse, so there was no need to worry about finding buyers.

Where else could you find such a profitable business?

Especially with the likes of Kan and Doyle, who were high-level players.

How many tokens they might have, and what kind of artifacts they might have received from the two of them, no one knew.

Although there was the risk of ambushing them while the other subordinates distracted Kan and Doyle, he thought the potential rewards would be enormous, making his lips dry and chapped.

And as he had expected, Kan and Doyle failed to notice them.

The prey, seemingly terrified, only tended to the campfire and didn’t notice them at all.

Swish! Just as Fran and his subordinates were about to rush through the bushes and attack the white-masked figure from behind.

Fran, who was about to think ‘It’s done!’, suddenly opened his eyes wide.

At the spot where the sword had swung, it was eerily empty.

Instinctively, he looked up and saw it.

The white mask was falling from above.

Beyond the mask, two eyes glowed eerily blue like ghostly flames.

“...!”

A chill ran down his spine.

Swish!

From the top of his head to the base of his spine, a deep red line was drawn, and he fell backward.

“What, what is this!”

“L-Leader!”

The scavengers who had followed Fran hesitated for a moment.

In that moment,

Yeonwoo turned his body and lunged at them.

Swoosh—

Under the night sky, his movement, sliding across the ground, was reminiscent of a ghost.

The eerie sight of the white mask floating in the pitch-black darkness sent shivers down their spines.

The sight was intimidating to the scavengers.

They had thought the prey was nothing special, but it was strong enough to kill Fran with a single strike.

Moreover, the two eyes that glowed like ghostly flames were terrifying just to look at.

Clang!

The scavenger at the forefront barely blocked Yeonwoo’s first attack.

The scavengers who had been retreating in the back changed their expressions.

Is it not as bad as we thought? Did Fran get caught off guard? Even if not, we outnumber them, so we can definitely catch him, right?

They had the same thought and made the same judgment, rushing forward to catch Yeonwoo.

Swish!

“This brat!”

“Die!”

But it was a trap to draw them in.

Yeonwoo, while still engaging the sword, turned to the right and plunged into the enemy’s inner side.

At the same time, he drew the greatsword from his waist with his left hand and slashed the neck.

Swish!

As the carotid artery was severed, blood spurted upward.

Yeonwoo threw the greatsword, piercing the forehead of the scavenger who was following.

Then, he kicked off the ground and ran in the opposite direction, swiftly slashing the waists, necks, and shoulders of the three who were waiting behind.

“What, what’s happening... Grr!”

“Damn!”

The scavengers finally realized they had been tricked by Yeonwoo and tried to retreat.

But it was already too late.

They had relied on their numbers to try to pressure Yeonwoo.

However, Yeonwoo rampaged among them like a madman.

He deflected incoming swords, pierced throats, waists, and hearts. He grabbed a spear aimed at a blind spot with his armpit, broke it, and slit the throat.

Yeonwoo seemed to have eyes all over his body, dodging attacks and counterattacking.

Each time, the scavengers fell, spewing blood.

It felt as if they were possessed by a ghost.

“R-Run!”

The scavengers, realizing too late that they had picked the wrong person to mess with, tried to flee.

Swoosh—

Thud!

Yeonwoo threw the greatsword at the back of the head of the scavenger who was running first and pursued the others.

His speed was too fast, and his direction was unpredictable, leaving them helpless.

Fear gripped their ankles.

Terror slowly gnawed at their minds.

* * *

The three of them caught a total of 21 scavengers.

More than they had expected.

Kan suddenly asked, puzzled.

“Why did you let these guys come?”

“More tokens are better.”

“You’re really a crazy guy.”

Kan lightly clicked his tongue.

It meant that since they were short of tokens, he had planned to tie them up in one place so they couldn’t run.

Of course, there were players in Sector E who thought like Yeonwoo.

It was too troublesome to find players one by one, so they pretended to be stragglers and waited for scavengers to fall into their trap.

But that was only possible when the numbers were small.

They were hesitant to face such a group of over twenty who moved in an organized manner.

No matter how strong the top players were, they couldn’t withstand the numbers.

But Yeonwoo dealt with it without any hesitation.

Whether he trusted Kan and Doyle, or he was confident in his own skills.

‘Or maybe both.’

Kan lightly clicked his tongue.

Meanwhile, Yeonwoo was extracting the last token from the remaining corpse.

“A total of 81? You really cleaned up.”

Yeonwoo was amazed at the number of tokens they had taken from the scavengers.

He had only obtained five tokens while crossing the forest with his senses activated.

Here, it was almost a hundred.

Moreover, the subordinates had only a couple of tokens, and most were held by the leaders.

“It’s been quite a while since Sector E opened. In fact, most of them were sold, and only a few were left for emergencies. With over a thousand people entering and repeatedly searching and clashing, it’s natural that they would accumulate at least this much.”

Doyle chuckled and answered Yeonwoo’s question.

“Most players probably have less than ten tokens.”

“Rich get richer, poor get poorer.”

“Exactly.”

Yeonwoo thought it made sense.

In reality, Sector E was structured to be a winner-takes-all.

A few strong players could simply plunder tokens from the many weaker players.

The weak would have to give up their tokens to survive.

After that, they would search the forest thoroughly to recover their losses, but they would end up being taken by other strong players.

‘Or they might forcibly bind the weak to make them find tokens for them.’

No matter the method, the strong could sit back and quickly accumulate tokens.

In contrast, the weak would always be short of tokens.

The greater the gap in public points as you moved up the tutorial ranking was due to this very reason.

Yeonwoo had also waited for the scavengers to come, knowing this system.

“Anyway, gather as many tokens as possible. It’s good for accumulating public points, and you can use them as currency when you meet the mysterious merchant later. Even top players usually don’t move to Sector F immediately after collecting 99 tokens. Try to gather as many as you can.”

Yeonwoo nodded, finding it reasonable.

‘Now that I think about it, didn’t the diary say we could meet the mysterious merchant again near the end of Sector E?’

He briefly recalled his brother’s diary.

There wasn’t anything worth buying from the mysterious merchant, so he hadn’t given it much thought.

But it wouldn’t hurt to keep it in mind.

“With that in mind, you can take all the tokens we’ve collected.”

“Huh?”

Yeonwoo turned to Doyle, surprised by the unexpected offer.

81 tokens were not a small number.

And he was saying he wouldn’t take any?

Doyle smiled and said,

“After all, we didn’t even give you a down payment for the deal, right? Think of it as that.”

“What about Kan?”

“He’s simple, so he’ll follow me. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t you need public points too?”

“Ha! Are you worried about us? We have enough, so it’s fine.”

“Then I’ll take them gratefully.”

There was no reason to refuse such a generous offer.

Yeonwoo put the tokens in a bag made from troll leather.

He couldn’t swallow them like before because there were too many.

‘Already this much.’

Yeonwoo couldn’t help but think how easy it was.

If he put a little more effort, he could move to Sector F.

Of course, he didn’t plan to do so immediately.

There were no major events in Sector F to boost public points.

Sector E was almost the last place to accumulate a large number of public points.

Moreover,

‘That guy will appear here too.’

The one he had wanted to catch even before entering the tutorial.

He appeared at this specific time, so he had to catch him in Sector E.

‘If I catch that, I can significantly increase my mana coefficient and complete the dragon body inheritance.’

If the solid container he sought in Sector B was the vessel, what he needed in Sector E was the content to fill it.

Yeonwoo lightly moistened his dry lower lip with his tongue.

‘After catching the Lizard King, I’ll go after that guy.’

The route and plan were already set in his mind.

* * *

The next day.

Yeonwoo and the others arrived at their destination, the northern swamp.

The swamp was so waterlogged that it was difficult to move.

Every step they took, their feet sank, and the deeper they went into the inner area, the deeper the swamp became.

They had no choice but to jump from tree to tree over the swamp.

During this time, they clashed with Lizardman villages several times.

The Lizardmen had an upright posture and the appearance of lizards. They were skilled in swordsmanship and had a fairly high intelligence, knowing how to ‘hunt.’

They tried to drain the strength of Yeonwoo’s group as much as possible, taking turns.

Then, they planned to attack all at once and kill the intruders.

However,

Yeonwoo’s group showed no signs of fatigue.

They swept away the Lizardmen one by one, and Yeonwoo could even pick out the materials he needed from them.

“...What are you taking this time?”

“The eyes. The eyes of Lizardmen are very effective for making certain buff artifacts.”

“Ah, right. There are plenty of Lizardmen here, so take what you need.”

Kan shook his head, seemingly tired of it.

When Yeonwoo even collected the Lizardmen’s tail stings, Kan didn’t ask for a reason anymore.

‘These eyes are important materials for making Gyes’s eyes.’

The weapon named after Gyes, the giant with dozens of eyes and hundreds of hands.

Yeonwoo, thinking of the artifact he wanted to obtain someday, resumed his movement.

Meanwhile, he steadily collected tokens, and the number had already increased to 89.

After wiping out a couple of Lizardman villages, they finally reached Hargan’s nest.

However,

“Brother, this?”

“Yeah, looks like we have a visitor.”

Doyle looked at Kan with a slightly stiff expression.

Kan nodded heavily.

Yeonwoo narrowed his eyes.

Along the inner area of the forest leading to Hargan’s nest, there were bloodstains and signs of battle.

The traces of other players.